


The Five Times Ingrid Coped and the One Time Smitelout Retaliated

by tysonrunningfox



Series: Festerverse [3]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/F, I'm just warning you, Kidfic, all OCs - Freeform, but it is decent lesbian smut if I do say so myself so I'm not deterring you on purpose, eret iii - Freeform, festerverse, if you haven't read eret iii this will mean very little to you, no one else really talks, or kids of characters fic, smingrid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-13 23:30:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14123184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tysonrunningfox/pseuds/tysonrunningfox
Summary: Ingrid is dealing with a lot.  Smitelout is dealing with a crush.  Sometimes, those things intersect.  Repeatedly.





	1. First

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I egg myself on. I"m sorry and also, I'm not sorry. It's complicated.

“Ok, but that doesn’t matter,” Smitelout glowers at Ingrid, pausing in the rhythmic smack of her hammer against her anvil.  It’s a satisfying expression, as always, the way her thick black eyebrows pull together over her nose like they’re trying to form an actual, physical barrier against logic.  “Why do I give a shit what someone wants as long as they pay for it?” 

“I don’t know, you think you might find a conscience somewhere between your stack of gold and selling a sword to a child.”  Ingrid raises an eyebrow, chewing on her pinky nail and waiting for Smitelout’s retort as she flushes dark red and turns back to the forge like that’ll hide it. 

“He told me it was for his dad—”

“And you believed him.” 

“I like to trust people, ok Ingrid?”  She tosses a log on the forge and it flares up, a smothering wave of heat crossing the room.  It’s nice in comparison to the snow outside and this storm is probably the first that won’t melt off entirely until spring. 

“Yeah, that’s what I think when I think about you,” Ingrid snorts, “trusting. Smitelout the Trusting, that just trips off the tongue—”

“You think about me.”  It’s half question and half alarm and Smitelout forces her face back into her favorite, neutral glare.  “That’s what you said, at least.” 

“Hmm,” Ingrid shrugs, watching Smitelout for a moment. 

She’s not sure when they became friends.  If that’s what this is, even, but she is here after dark at the forge, hanging out while Smitelout tries to catch up on some work.  It wasn’t the hand.  The hand made her like Smitelout less for a while, because Ingrid doesn’t like being puzzled out.  She didn’t like that Smitelout saw what she needed and made it happen and then sold it to her so it couldn’t look like some kind of favor. 

And it wasn’t the whole thing with Eret.  Before Eret.  Whatever.  Smitelout doesn’t have a knack for timing. 

It wasn’t when Smitelout fixed her hand after she bent it. 

Maybe it was when Spitleaf started dating Haggar Larson. 

Maybe they aren’t friends.  Maybe that’s easiest, if she’s just here because the chief’s house feels awfully crowded these days and because it’s fun to make her face change color.  That’s always been true, Ingrid used to love the way she’d turn that furious puce color when she lost at something, but maybe it’s the fact she keeps turning red that makes Ingrid think of the reality of the thing. 

Smitelout likes her and she never really thought through that.  Internalized it as reality, yes, but she hasn’t thought through what that means or why and maybe it’s the snow and the orange light of the forge, but it seems like as good of a time as ever to revisit that concept. 

“What are you staring at?”  Smitelout crosses her arms, slumping her shoulders like she’s trying to seem broader. 

“You, I guess.” Ingrid shrugs a shoulder and Smitelout sputters, caught off guard for an instant.  

Smitelout is almost pretty.  She could probably be, if she tried to be, or more like if she just stopped trying not to be.  The hard glare makes her jaw look squarer than it is, and the way she slumps and postures makes her seem shorter and wider. 

“Because that’s not weird, or anything,” she sputters, crossing her arms and fidgeting, like she’s thinking about what Ingrid’s seeing.  Like she wants her to like it. 

“I was just thinking, you’d be pretty if you could stop glaring at me for a second.” 

“Too bad you can’t stop being stupid for a second.”  Smitelout’s cheeks go patchy red and Ingrid cocks her head. 

There are a whole lot of things she never thought she’d do again.  Hold an axe right handed was one of them but Smitelout fixed that, and here, in a sweltering forge, during a stupid argument, she’s verging on changing her mind about another.  Not wholly.  Not all at once.  But Ingrid likes that she’s affecting Smitelout, she likes the way she’s blushing and over her usually biting words. 

“You sold a sword to a child and I’m the stupid one?” 

“I’m trying to help Gobber run a business, Ingrid,” Smitelout stomps and Ingrid feels a hint of that ticklish warmth that she was sure died with her fingers. 

“Right, Gobber, the chief’s favorite ninety year old father figure is really hurting for money.”

“I’m the little guy, I don’t get that much of it.”  A lock of thick, black hair falls out of her braid and over her shoulder and Ingrid does something else she thought she’d never do again and moves without thinking, stepping up to Smitelout and tucking it back behind her ear. 

“You aren’t that little, that’s a stupid excuse,” she watches Smitelout’s expression shift from shock to embarrassment and back to righteous indignation as her fingers drag down the lock of surprisingly soft, if ashy, hair. 

“Not all of us can be giants,” Smitelout shoves at Ingrid’s shoulders and Ingrid catches her hands, leaning down to kiss her. 

Another impulse, but hey, this one isn’t going to lop off any body parts. 

Smitelout gasps and a muffled complaint stifles itself on Ingrid’s lips.  Smitelout’s hands go limp against Ingrid’s shoulders and she pauses, breath cool on Ingrid’s cheek, before kissing back, lower lip trembling slightly. 

Ingrid’s first kiss was with Darren Thorston and she vowed, in that moment, to never touch another boy romantically again.  It felt wrong, unnatural.  She was sixteen and drunk the first time she kissed Spitleaf, running on some urge she didn’t quite understand but also couldn’t let go.  And it was sweet and slow and clumsy and thinking about it now only makes her think of how they ended and why. 

Kissing Smitelout isn’t what Ingrid would have expected at all.  It’s  _soft_.  Her hair is soft in Ingrid’s fingers, her waist is soft under her hands.  Her lips are moving carefully for the first time since Ingrid has known her, every brush intentional and hesitant.  Asking.  Her hands are still slack against Ingrid’s shoulders and her pulse is racing when Ingrid’s hand finds the back of her neck and pulls her closer, tilting her head to deepen the kiss. 

Smitelout’s tongue is soft too, warm and almost tentative for how easily it throws her opinions in Ingrid’s face, and that gets to her, somehow.  It’s not that Smitelout isn’t kissing her back, it’s that she’s letting herself be led and Ingrid wants to.  She wants to lead her.  She wants to follow that months dead warmth pooling in her belly and the way that it grows when the hand not on Smitelout’s neck slides from her waist to her hip.  That’s soft and solid too, mutable where the hard lines of her metal fingers aren’t and Ingrid pushes the shorter girl back until her shoulders thud against the door to the back room. 

“You ok?”  Ingrid breathes, pulling back enough to kiss down Smitelout’s neck, her hand tangling in thick, soft braid as she pulls it aside. 

“Are you fucking with me?”  Smitelout shudders, her hands finally moving.  They clasp Ingrid’s shoulders, holding on like she’s a wild dragon about to take off and it feels like power.  Like she has some power over Smitelout and the other girl respects it.  Likes it.  Wants it, even, from the way she trembles when Ingrid drags teeth across her neck. 

“Do you want me to?” 

“What?”  Smitelout squawks and there’s no trace of that glare left.  Ingrid was right, she is pretty.  Square jawed and strong featured, but pretty too, and without her constant scowl, Ingrid can see freckles that are soft like her kisses dotted across her nose.  Her nose is kind of cute.  Her kiss swollen lips are too, combined with that gobsmacked expression. 

Ingrid wants to keep her like this.  Her pupils dilate further when Ingrid smiles and presses her hips against Smitelout’s, kissing her neck.  

“Do you want me to stop?”  Ingrid likes the flush of that power when Smitelout exhales, grip on her shoulders tightening almost painfully.  She likes how sturdy it makes her feel and how Smitelout is content between her and the wall, like she really trusts her.  And Smitelout is trembling from having her neck kissed more than she ever has from a verbal altercation, her pulse racing under reddening skin.  It seems like Ingrid finally found her long time rival’s weak spot and how to impact it.  She sucks a hickey under Smitelout’s jaw and she gasps, hips bucking forward. 

Yes, that’s a good reaction, that’s what Ingrid is trying to get out of her.  She didn’t know it but she wants it, she wants Smitelout grinding against her. 

She wants to feel her fall apart.  Hel, she wants to help her fall apart. 

It is bold when she slides her hands down, pulling up Smitelout’s tunic with her left and sliding flesh and metal fingertips under the waistband of her leggings.  It feels good to be bold.  She kisses under Smitelout’s jaw and presses herself closer, knee sliding between the shorter girl’s legs. 

“Ingrid,” Smitelout gasps, fingers digging into Ingrid’s arms even through her furs. 

“I’ll stop,” Ingrid kisses back up to Smitelout’s ear, nibbling on the lobe.  “I’d even just do this for a while,” she leans harder into Smitelout, the hand on the bottom of her tunic moving back to her waist and stroking gently.  She doesn’t remember the last time they sparred, they must have been way younger, because she would have noticed how good Smitelout feels under her hands.  She slides her fingertips back and forth under Smitelout’s waistband and biting her lip when Smitelout’s stomach twitches under the touch. 

“Don’t…” Smitelout breathes, arching into the touch as her eyes flutter shut. 

“Ok, I’ll stop."  Maybe it was just too much for her.  It's a lot for Ingrid, who didn't think about this before today.  Ingrid takes half a step back and tries to preserve the image of Smitelout frazzled against the wall in her mind.  Her metal fingers don’t look too bad in it, stark against the strip of creamy white skin of Smitelout’s stomach. 

"Don't fucking stop."  Smitelout hisses, shaking her head and pulling Ingrid back in with that death grip on her shoulders.  "Don't even think about fucking stopping."  

00000

Ingrid pauses and Smitelout thinks she did something wrong.  That’s the one thing she’s been trying not to do since Ingrid nonsensically shoved her with force against a wall and kissed the fuck out of her.  And oh gods, all the fuck out of her.  Ingrid kisses like she’s trying to win something and for the first time, Smitelout wants to let her. 

“You want—”

“Don’t stop,” Smitelout repeats, hands locked on Ingrid’s shoulders like a lifeline.  She’s whining and hates it because she sounds so desperate, but it’s a miracle she got any words out at all.  And fuck, she is desperate and it’s all Ingrid’s fault and she better fucking come through and fix what she broke here. 

“You want me to keep going?”  Ingrid teases, all light and flirty like Smitelout’s heart isn’t going to jackhammer a hole in her chest. 

“Yes, fuck.  Keep going.” 

“You want me to keep doing this?”  That stupidly hot flirting voice drops half an octave and Ingrid presses damp lips to the side of Smitelout’s face.  Not so much a kiss as a menacing demonstration of proximity.  And the hand, the hand that she felt comfortable just…fucking putting down Smitelout’s pants with almost no warning starts moving again, inching towards her underwear. 

Smitelout leans forward enough to kiss the slightly sweaty skin of Ingrid’s neck and gods, she tastes good, how in the Hel does she get off tasting good?  “Fuck, I—”

Ingrid cuts her off, sliding her hand under Smitelout’s leggings.  No one has ever done that before, no one has ever touched her like this.  Ingrid’s fingers trace her like they’re trying to figure something out and the steel tips of the fingers she designed are cold and almost ticklish.  She can’t breathe and she’s about to say something akin to accusing Ingrid of trying to actually kill her when Ingrid’s warm first finger finds something between her legs. 

Ingrid rubs. 

Smitelout loses all connection between her brain and mouth, slumping against the door. 

Ingrid laughs, comfortable and excited, kissing under Smitelout’s ear.  Her hand is doing something that is very nice but also overwhelming and Smitelout’s knees shake as her grip on Ingrid starts to feel like a tether to a reality that doesn’t make sense.  Ingrid wouldn’t do this.  Ingrid yelled in her face when she learned about Smitelout’s dumb little crush.

Ingrid pinches the thing at the center of Smitelout’s rapidly deteriorating world and she gasps, bucking into it as Ingrid leans back in to kiss her jaw.  Ingrid’s hand is still moving and Smitelout’s mouth falls open, her hands sliding over Ingrid’s shoulders, clasping to hold herself up. 

And then, as If all of this weren’t already enough, Ingrid leans into her ear and breathes. 

“I would have guessed you’d be loud.” 

Smitelout searches for a reply but that’s lost to her as Ingrid dips lower, teasing at slipping a warm finger inside of her, a sensation only made more pointed by the cold, metal finger dragging across her inner thigh.  Smitelout closes her eyes, head leaning back against the door, and Ingrid kisses her aggressively, like she sees weakness and isn’t stopping until it has all been exploited.   

“Ingrid,” Smitelout reaches for an order and manages something more like a whimper, hips bucking against the door and Ingrid’s hand and the big, fat, irritating nothing inside of her.  Why won’t Ingrid just get the fuck on with it?  And Smitelout doesn’t know what to think about the fact that it’s hot that Ingrid is forcibly holding her against the wall.  She could get out if she wanted to, because Ingrid isn’t that strong, but she doesn’t want to.  There’s something desperate in the way Ingrid is looking at her, like she’s marveling that Smitelout trusts her. 

And gods, it’s not trust, it’s want.  It’s need. 

“Really,” Ingrid presses her knee further between Smitelout’s and presses a wet, open mouthed kiss to her temple.  “I would have thought you’d be bossing me around the whole time.”  Her finger slides in all at once and pumps slowly.  It’s too much and not enough and Ingrid seems to know that because she’s so full of herself, Smitelout can hear her smirk.  “Telling me how I’m doing everything wrong…” 

She trails off and fidgets for a second and Smitelout’s building up the energy to inquire what the fuck is taking so long and then one of those cold steel fingers joins Ingrid’s inside of her.  And the contrasting temperature is good and when Ingrid starts pumping them slowly, the wider joints of the finger feel _very_ good. 

“That doesn’t hurt, right?”  Ingrid checks in, adjusting the angle slightly and Smitelout sees stars.  “Ok, it definitely doesn’t.”  Ingrid’s laugh isn’t unkind and the way she starts kissing Smitelout’s neck again makes up for the tiny burst of embarrassment that Smitelout’s brain has room for. 

Then, somehow, the rubbing starts back up again too and the moan that comes out of Smitelout’s mouth is more choke than anything as she entirely forgets how to breathe.  If Ingrid stops now, Smitelout will combust. Ingrid rubs harder and Smitelout bites back a groan, her body throbbing and singing and so entirely overwhelmed.  Ingrid’s eyes are focused when Smitelout can convince herself to look at them, mostly black but completely absorbed, and she quirks her wrist and it feels impossibly, stiflingly better for a second. 

Gods, that’s good.  That’s better than anything she’s clumsily replicated herself in her bedroom.  And Ingrid is staring at her with that smirk. 

“I could have guessed you’d be stubborn though,” Ingrid’s other hand slides under Smitelout’s tunic grips her bare waist, thumbing the bottom hem of her breast bindings.  “I can feel how close you are, you know.  You aren’t very good at lying to me.” 

And as much as Smitelout hates to admit she’s right, this is all building.  Ingrid pumps her hand faster and flicks her wrist again and Smitelout whimpers, her head lolling to the side when Ingrid starts kissing her neck.  She wants it, she knows she does, but at some level, she never wants this to end.  She’s not stupid, this is never going to happen again.  She wants this for as long as possible, even though the molten throbbing in her limbs is starting to be torturous. 

“I can always tell when you know you’re losing,” Ingrid purrs in her ear, “it’s a lot like now, actually.”  That’s punctuated with a particularly hard thrust of Ingrid’s fingers.  “You shake when you’re mad, your face goes red.”  Another hard thrust and Smitelout starts to lose it, teetering on the edge of something so good she’s almost scared it’s going to hurt.  “You aren’t hiding it, you’re falling apart just the way I wanted you to.”  Ingrid finds something else inside of her, something vibrantly sensitive, and Smitelout bites her lip.  “So why don’t you make it easier on both of us and just come?” 

It’s blinding and silent and Smitelout isn’t aware that she has limbs, let alone of where they are.  Her brain goes blank except for the gentling pressure of Ingrid rubbing her through it, kissing her cheek and jaw and neck and making comforting sounds. 

Because Ingrid can’t just stick to ruining Smitelout’s life by being unattainable and perfect, she also has to traipse in and teach her what her body can feel so that she’ll be eternally unsatisfied.  It’s calculated.  It’s cruel. 

Where the Hel did she learn to talk like that anyway?  Those words are going to run themselves ragged driving Smitelout crazy for as long as she has to suffer through life not feeling like that ever again. 

“Midgard to Smitelout,” Ingrid laughs gently again and Smitelout is aware that her forehead is on the other girl’s shoulder, next to a still clamped tight hand.  “Do I need to send in a rescue party?” 

“Fuck off,” Smitelout drops Ingrid’s shoulders and stands up, dizzy enough to brace herself on the door.  Ingrid smirks again, very gently removing her fingers from between Smitelout’s legs.  Even so, the last drag across her over-stimulated skin makes her knees tremble and she tries to glare at Ingrid’s deceptively sincere expression of almost worry. 

She yawns. 

Ingrid laughs again and Smitelout fixes her pants, trying to seem like she’s cool with this, like she does this all the time.  That wasn’t a landmark experience in her life.  Ingrid must be desperate to be…shoving random people against walls and doing _that_. 

That happened.  Fuck, that happened. 

“I should close up, I’m not getting shit done,” she starts putting tools away as loudly as possible, hoping it’ll scare Ingrid off, but it’s Ingrid and she won’t ever do what Smitelout expects.  That’d be too fucking convenient. 

“It didn’t—”  Ingrid steps closer, holding up her hand.  The hand.  The hand that deals such life-ruining pleasure.  “It really didn’t hurt?” 

“N-no,” Smitelout stutters, forcing her eyebrows rigid, “it—no, you know what?  I make you that hand and you do— _that_ with it?  That is not proper care of gronckle iron, no wonder your axe always looks like shit.  You better oil that thing so that it doesn’t rust—” 

Ingrid cuts her off by raising the middle finger to her mouth and fucking licking it.  The finger that was just—oh gods.  That’s—Smitelout is so red she could heat metal on her face and Ingrid’s tongue darts carefully around the finger joints.  She makes a show of her eyes falling shut and when she’s done, she leaves the middle finger fully extended. 

That was—does that mean—

“That better?”  Ingrid doesn’t wait for an answer, shoving her hands in her pockets and walking backwards towards the door.  “Goodnight, Lout, I’ll see you around.” 

“I hope not,” Smitelout calls after her, standing long enough for the door to shut behind her before collapsing onto her stool. 


	2. Second

Two weeks go by and Ingrid doesn’t think about Smitelout. 

Well, she doesn’t think about Smitelout _much_. 

The times she randomly remembers what she said and how she said it and most importantly, why she felt the need to say it, don’t really count because they’re a self-reconstructive assessment of how she’s doing when everyone says she needs to be coping more.  It’s not thinking about Smitelout when she admits to herself that it felt nice to kiss somebody and even nicer to be in control of it.  And she was more than in control, she was guiding the whole thing and she made sure that it turned out well.  She felt like herself again in the moment, even though she’d never been like that when she was _intimate_ before. 

And maybe that’s ever so slightly thinking about Smitelout, because Smitelout is the one who makes her feel the best about picking insignificant battles and being bossy and _winning_ , but it could be anyone.  It just happened to be Smitelout.  Because Smitelout likes her and admitted it and she’s so easy to fluster and that makes it fun.  And she made Ingrid new fingers, so she might as well get to use them too, it’s only fair. 

So, it’s not about Smitelout.  It’s about the crescendo of events that led her to kissing Smitelout and…well, maybe whatever happened after that was kind of about Smitelout. 

Ingrid isn’t avoiding that.  She liked kissing her and making her blush and…well, despite a lifetime of arguments, it was deeply satisfying to make her feel good.  It felt like doing something right but also on her terms.   And it felt practically like charity to the whole island to make her loosen up for just a second. 

A couple minutes really, she got so sleepy and boneless.  That was cute, even though it was irritating because she had to argue about it.  But even the argument could be put out by flustering her and—why is Ingrid still thinking about it?  It was just…a thing that happened.  Just an urge that played out. 

And now it’s been two weeks and she hasn’t explained that, so Smitelout is probably sure she’s being ignored. 

That’s half the reason Ingrid decides to take her hatchet to the forge right around closing time, the other half of the reason is that it’s dull from Stoick using it to try and chop rocks in half, but combined they’re enough to make Smitelout groan upon seeing it, forehead dramatically on her hand.  Her hair looks shinier now that Ingrid knows how soft it is and an ash streaked strand hangs over her face.  Ingrid rolls her eyes to avoid looking at it, because that’s stupid. 

Smitelout isn’t suddenly attractive just like how she’s not suddenly her friend.  If she’s attractive, it’s because she was the whole time and her personality just obscured it. 

That’s not any easier.  Especially considering she’s the only one who managed to have the same personality when Ingrid came back as they did when she left.  And she made these fingers without asking.  And she was so soft. 

No, Ingrid isn’t thinking about that, she’s just here to prove that she’s not ignoring anything or anyone. 

“I spent hours getting this perfect,” Smitelout scowls at Ingrid before flushing and looking away, like she’s just now remembering the last time they talked.  Or didn’t talk. 

Or Ingrid talked while Smitelout clung to her, squirming and uncharacteristically quiet. 

Ingrid hates the idea that Smitelout might have spent the last couple of weeks unaffected in her day to day.  That’s beyond irritating, actually, and Ingrid drops the axe on the counter.  It falls loudly and the last couple of people in the square for the day look over at them. 

“Hours?  It’s a hatchet,” Ingrid rolls her eyes, scooting it closer and purposefully brushing Smitelout’s hand to see if she flinches.  She doesn’t, fingers pale and rigid against the counter. “I’ll help you fix it if it’s really so much of a problem.” 

“Right, like that wouldn’t make it take longer.”  She rolls her eyes, utterly uncaring, and Ingrid sets her jaw. 

Even if she’s undecided on all the reasons how and why, what happened a couple weeks ago was important and Smitelout doesn’t get to act like she didn’t feel it too, in some way.  Ingrid felt how she felt it and it wasn’t small.  It made her feel like herself again and Smitelout went too far giving that back to her to take it away now.   

“Teach me a lesson,” Ingrid rolls her eyes, “maybe I’ll take better care of my gronckle iron if I know how hard it is to fix.” 

“Doubtful.”  Smitelout flushes bright red, finally, long eyelashes softening her glare.  It doesn’t look so much like a glare at all now, actually.  More of a glower or even a simper with large scale glare components. 

“You just don’t think you could teach me.” 

“I’m not sure you could learn.” 

“Try me,” Ingrid hops up on the counter, swinging her legs through the window and dropping down on the other side.  Smitelout stumbled a step back, eyes wide and face open.  Ingrid grins and crosses her arms, she knew Smitelout cared.  No matter how much she wanted to lie about it, she remembers it just as clearly as Ingrid does. 

Maybe less clear because she spent enough of it shaking out of her skin, but she remembers it just as much. 

“Fine,” Smitelout huffs and stalks off to the small room in the back of the forge, slamming a jar of oil on the counter and pulling out a rag.  “First off, this is how you oil an axe handle so that it doesn’t splinter the first time someone swings it funny.”  She glares at Ingrid as she starts rubbing the oil into the old, pale wood. 

Ingrid pauses to look at a half finished mace on the anvil before wandering back to the room and leaning her elbow on the counter.  Smitelout looks up from where she’s furiously scrubbing the old, dingy handle with oil, a muscle in her arm twitching when she seems to realize she’s have to push past Ingrid to get to the door. 

She’s got nice arms.  They’ve got the kind of definition Ingrid never manages and she’d guess it’s from the forge, from the way Smitelout’s arm flexes when she picks up a small hammer and nicks the center of the axe head.  It dents and she glares up at Ingrid like she said something personally offensive. 

“What?”

“Did you heat this up?” 

Ingrid blanches at that. 

Yes, she did.  Off island when she had nothing cleaner to stop the bleeding.  Then she forgot about it more successfully than she did with the rest of this apparently. 

“I know heating up gronckle iron messes it up,” she says, avoiding answering and Smitelout frowns, looking at her face like she thinks there’s an answer somewhere in her blank expression. 

“I can fix it—”

“Yeah, that’s what you always say,” Ingrid shoves the hatchet towards her by it’s newly oily handle. 

The handle is shiny again even though the head dented with a single hit.  It hits her that there’s some truth to Smitelout fixing everything.  Her axe, her hand, the fact that everyone keeps talking to her like she’s fragile. 

Not to mention, the fact that she’d never want to think of, let alone touch another human being in any personal way. 

Smitelout fixes a lot of things. 

Ingrid never wants to look at that hatchet again so she looks at Smitelout instead, eyes trailing down from her irritated and oddly concerned expression to her stupid deep necked tunic, like all that skin isn’t just a target for someone to stab her somewhere vital.  She remembers reaching under Smitelout’s leggings like part of some strange, positive reality coinciding with the one where her hatchet is damaged from her disastrous jaunt off island. 

She felt in control.  She felt happy.  She got to take care of someone who oh so clearly needed it instead of constantly being worried about.   

And Smitelout is worrying, frowning slightly and picking up the hatchet and getting to work with almost twitchy fingers.  She can’t worry, she’s the last stronghold, the only one who’s actually made Ingrid feel better.  She’s the only one who actually fixed anything. 

“Hey, I’m on it,” Smitelout starts oiling the head of the hatched at exposing dents and dings in the blade, “I’ll get this re-quenched and as good as new—well, not really, but close enough—”

“Isn’t that oil going to burn in the forge?”  Ingrid doesn’t know if that’s true or not, but she suddenly wants Smitelout frustrated, not sincere.  She can’t take the sincerity when someone is trying to help her, it’s almost as bad as the pity. 

“Duh,” she huffs, “but that’s how I tell how far I’ve got to take this down to smooth it out.” 

“You can measure with burnt oil?  That doesn’t sound real.”  Ingrid steps closer to Smitelout and she smells like leather and ash and something keenly metallic that overpowers the oil on the hatchet that Ingrid doesn’t want anymore but she doesn’t know how to say it.  

“I measure with experience.” 

“Right,” Ingrid rolls her eyes and leans down, trying to get Smitelout to look at her.  It’d feel better, somehow, if she was angry and staring back.  Facing it like she always does and Ingrid is scared to now.  “You have enough experience, after being an apprentice for a year, to measure with burned oil—”

“I have four years of experience,” Smitelout snaps, glaring at Ingrid with narrowed blue eyes.  They’re darker than the usual Berk blue, more intense somehow, and that only makes it better when she’s angry and focused.  “Just because some were before your twerp brother doesn’t mean they don’t matter.” 

“I didn’t say that.” 

“You thought it,” she pulls out a file and starts going at the edge of the hatchet blade, her arm flexing on every back swing and her jaw set forward.  “Just because you weren’t paying attention—”

“I’m going to stop you there,” Ingrid makes the wrong decision that feels the most relieving kind of right.  Smitelout can fix the hatchet and more than that, she can help fix how awful Ingrid feels about everything right now. 

“Because it’s true?” 

“Because you’re right,” Ingrid kicks the door behind her shut and it clicks into place, leaving them in silence and dark, except for the dimming lantern on the wall.  “I’m never going to learn this.” 

“I’m glad you—”  Smitelout starts, voice irritating and smug and unguardedly angry and Ingrid cuts her off with hands on both her cheeks, pulling her into a kiss. 

She drops the hatchet.  It probably ruins it forever, but Ingrid doesn’t care, nesting her hand in Smitelout’s thick braid and tilting her head back.  There.  Now she’s not thinking of anything but warm soft kisses and the way that Smitelout’s tongue is slightly more confident than last time, flirting with hers in the exact opposite of an argument. 

Her other hand lands on Smitelout’s waist and fists in her tunic, pulling the shorter girl flush against her.  Even better.  Smitelout groans when Ingrid’s hand slides down to her ass and Ingrid pulls back from the kiss with a gasp, pushing her towards the workbench until it hits her in the lower back. 

“Sit.” 

“Why?”  Smitelout breathes, suddenly shy.  Less shy than last time, if the way she reclaims Ingrid’s lips is any indication, but shy all the same. 

“Better angle.” 

“For what?”  Smitelout barely gets out before Ingrid is kissing her again, hands sliding up under her tunic to the waistband of her leggings.  She hooks her thumbs and pauses, waiting for Smitelout to stop her.  The other girl pants, face buried in her shoulder.  “Again? That’s—”

“If you don’t want me to—”

“Of course I fucking want you to,” she says, her voice higher than usual and whiny, just how it got last time when she was close and fighting it. 

Good.  She did remember. 

“Sit,” Ingrid’s hands slide up Smitelout’s waist under her tunic and half lifts her onto the workbench. Smitelout gets the rest of it, shimmying back an inch when she finds purchase before her hands land on Ingrid’s shoulders.  It’s not the same death grip as last time, it’s more like she’s touching something she knows is safe, and Ingrid likes that impulse.  She cups Smitelout’s chest over her bindings to show it and Smitelout groans. 

“Why do you want to do this again?”  Smitelout gasps against Ingrid’s cheek and Ingrid takes the opportunity to kiss her chest above the neck of her tunic.  It’s bitter with ash and salty with sweat and Ingrid tugs at the top of Smitelout’s leggings again. 

“Because I want to.”  Ingrid licks a line from the top of  Smitelout’s sternum to her ear, sliding her hands down Smitelout’s thighs and curling the seated girl’s legs around her waist.  That feels good, like being held in a way that isn’t about her weakness.  It’s about something she controls, something that feels good and powerful and real. 

“Why do you want to?”  Smitelout falters, less confident, and Ingrid kisses her jaw. 

“Because it was fun last time.”  Ingrid tugs at Smitelout’s leggings and she leans back enough to start pushing them down.  The workbench must be cold under her ass because she gasps and Ingrid rubs her palms on the top of Smitelout’s thighs to warm them up.  “For me, at least.  You’ll probably claim you were miserable the whole time—”

“Miserable,” she does whine this time, wrapping her arms around Ingrid’s neck and kissing her clumsily, “just hurry up with it.” 

“That’s not very encouraging,” Ingrid mutters in Smitelout’s ear, trailing her hand up Smitelout’s inner thigh.  She shudders.  Good. 

Ingrid likes how responsive she is even more than the first time, if that’s possible.  It’s like everything she does and says is felt and heard so loud that it’s worth saying more.  She kisses the damp skin between Smitelout’s neck and shoulder and tickles the crease of her ass against the workbench.  Smitelout bucks, arms tightening around Ingrid’s neck. 

That’s good too.  She likes the way Smitelout hangs on her like she trusts she’ll be held up.  Ingrid wants to be someone who holds other people up again and this feels close.  She also likes how solid Smitelout feels, smooth curves and steady posture even when she traces the crease of her with her right pointer finger. 

She shudders but doesn’t fall apart.  Her back stays steady and warm even as she buries her face in Ingrid’s neck. 

“Now you’re quiet,” Ingrid clears her throat, that urge to steer through this out loud cropping up again.  “You don’t have anything negative to say now.”  She drags her finger through, testing for wetness, before sinking it in all the way, pumping a couple of gentle times and breathing hard when Smitelout moans under her breath, pressing her forehead into Ingrid’s shoulder. 

“You…you could hurry up.”  She gasps, that whiny edge on her voice, and Ingrid wants to take care of her even more, wants to make her happily calm. 

She curls her finger and Smitelout shudders, twitching her hips against the contact. 

“Fast enough for you?” 

“Not really,” Smitelout whimpers, “and…more, I—like last time.” 

“I want it to be different than last time.”  Ingrid’s heart pounds as she nearly growls against Smitelout’s throat, “so you remember both.”  She pumps a few careful times with her first finger and pulls back out to position the second.  It was a trick last time, doing it inside of Smitelout’s pants, but this time she has room to get it perfectly straight and pressed to her first finger as it goes in. 

She gets to about the first knuckle when Smitelout groans, frustrated. 

“Just shut up and get on with it.” 

And maybe that’s why this is so doable.  It’s competitive, that argumentative edge ahead of anything it makes her feel.  Ingrid grins, remembering Smitelout’s stunned face when she licked her finger off. 

“You want me to shut up?” 

“Eternally.” 

“I can’t promise that,” Ingrid pulls back fast enough that Smitelout’s slack arms droop off of her shoulders and she barely catches herself with flat palms on the workbench.  She barely has time to look disappointed before Ingrid bends down and pushes up the hem of her tunic, pulling her apart with her thumbs and licking. 

Smitelout squeals, one heel kicking Ingrid in the thigh.  Ingrid licks again, stopping to swirl her tongue around that most sensitive part.  Smitelout whimpers, falling back onto her elbows and shaking the workbench. 

“Oh Gods,” she groans and it must be her head that hits the wall when Ingrid sucks, moving her hand down to start working in two fingers. 

“What?”  Ingrid looks up, cocking her head and trying to look innocent even as the second knuckle slides smoothly inside. 

“You know what.”  Smitelout looks like she’s flirting with the barrier between relaxed and in pain, her eyes squinted shut and her face placid.  Ingrid can’t see her freckles in the lantern light but she can see the way the skin of her chest is damp with little beads of sweat.  She kisses the inside of Smitelout’s thigh, sucking long enough to leave a faint red mark. 

Smitelout whimpers again, heels weakly swinging on either side of Ingrid’s knees. 

Ingrid slides her fingers the rest of the way in and starts rocking them slowly, watching Smitelout bite her lip and relax slightly before going back to licking her.  It’s not something she has as much experience with as she does with her hands, but Smitelout doesn’t seem to notice, jolting at every soft contact of her tongue.  She sucks and thrusts harder with her fingers at the same time and Smitelout arches off of the workbench, thrusting her chest into the air. 

“Gods, it’s—”

“Go ahead and come, I’m too busy to ask you to this time.”  Ingrid mutters against Smitelout’s inner thigh before going back to lapping at her, alternating quick licks and a few long sucks.  The harder fingers seem to work like they did last time and Smitelout’s knees start shaking. 

“I’m not—it’s not that easy—oh fuck, how are you so good at this?”  She sounds desperate in the best way as she smacks her palm on the workbench, her other hand tangling in Ingrid’s hair.  Probably getting axe oil in it, but that’s not what she cares about right now. 

Ingrid wants to see Smitelout finish, she wants the slack-jawed quiet afterward where she feels like she won something and in some small way, like she repaid Smitelout for the fingers.  And the help and the fights.  But the fingers are easier to thank her for. 

She twists her fingers like Smitelout liked last time, licking hard at her sensitive spot and she gasps for air, arching off of the bench even further and crying out as her legs clamp around Ingrid’s shoulders. 

“There we go,” Ingrid pulls back far enough to stretch her sore back, rubbing Smitelout’s inner thigh with her free hand while her two fingers pump slowly inside of her.  “That’s better.” 

“Fuck,” Smitelout gasps as she finally flops flat, shuddering as Ingrid removes her fingers.  She wants to lick them off again, just to keep the positive taste of this experience with her over the sad reason, but it won’t feel like she earned it in a couple of hours. 

Smitelout’s face is entirely relaxed and it makes Ingrid want to get closer to her in way she hasn’t been close to anyone since.  She wants to wrap herself around all those slack muscles and all that pale, sweaty skin and hold it close.  That’s scarier than the jagged edge of her old, ruined hatched on the floor. 

“Consider it free repairs,” she cocks her hip and crosses her arms and it feels fake around Smitelout for the first time, “on the hatchet.” 

“Oh Hel no,” Smitelout pushes herself back up on wobbly arms, hair messed up and lips swollen.  She can’t manage a glare and it’s something closer to sleepy discontent.  Ingrid wants to kiss it off but it doesn’t look like Smitelout could take helping distract her anymore for the minute.  “Same price as everyone else.  More for you, since you—”

“Since I what?”  She calls Smitelout’s red-faced bluff, looking for a reason to leave before this finishes sinking in.  If it sinks in, it might become more important than it is.  If she thinks about it, it might matter and she doesn’t want it to.  She wants an outlet. 

Axes are hard now, she’s learning, but it’s hard in a way it never was.  Dragons, siblings, family?  All of those are hard too. 

Smitelout, splayed out in front of her, red-faced and jelly limbed, is the easiest thing in the world and she doesn’t want to change that.  She wants to feel helpful by making Smitelout feel so good her eyes glaze over and as long as Smitelout will let her, she’s going to take it. 

“Got it dirty.”  Smitelout sits up enough to look at the dusty axe on the ground and wrinkles her cute nose. 

Her nose.  Just her nose. 

“Right.  It’s the hatchet I got dirty.”  Ingrid rolls her eyes and fidgets with her shirt for a minute, looking anywhere above Smitelout’s waist.  “I should go clean it.” 

“I need it oiled—”

“Right, for the burn measuring,” Ingrid backs towards the door, fumbling for the knob and opening it when she feels it, “let me know when it’s done.  I’ll see you—”

“You’re leaving now?”  Smitelout struggles with her pants, tripping on them around her ankles when she drops clumsy and wobbly kneed to the ground. 

“I’ve got places to be,” she slips out and shuts it hard behind her.  Not her best exit.  Everything else was a pretty landmark performance though. 


	3. Third

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”  Ingrid is the kind of asshole who not only thinks she has the right to appear out of nowhere without any kind of warning but also that she can take Smitelout’s drink out of her hand and take a sip of it.  With her lips. 

Her lips that know things.  They know how to do things that other lips don’t.  Smitelout looks at them for a second before jerking her eyes back to Ingrid’s.  She looks amused, the same way she did the last two times Smitelout tried to talk to her about everything, but this time, oh, this time Smitelout has a secret weapon. 

Well, had a secret weapon.  Ingrid just took the rest of it and is sipping on it, but Smitelout had plenty to drink before the stupid hot alcohol thief showed up. 

“None of your business,” she crosses her arms.  Either she’s swaying or there’s an earthquake and she stumbles forward slightly.  Ingrid catches her upper arm and keeps her on her feet.  Her hand is cool and her metal fingers snag in Smitelout’s sleeve. 

“Never mind, you’re totally stable.”  Ingrid is smirking that irritating smirk and Smitelout remembers full force that she knows what it tastes like.  She licks her lip before catching herself and shrugs Ingrid’s hand off. 

Ingrid takes another long, contemplative sip of Smitelout’s drink. 

“Sure, fine, you can have that.  Whatever.”  Smitelout rolls her eyes and that makes Ingrid’s image blur into two for a second.  Two Ingrids, that’s a fucking nightmare.  It’d be so exhausting.  Thank Thor that’s not possible. 

Like, unless one Ingrid was planning on randomly shoving her into the other Ingrid to unceremoniously—

No, she’s not thinking about that.  About any of that.  This isn’t about her.  Well, it is, but mostly it’s about the fact that she’s had all of Ingrid’s everything all over her twice and both times she froze like an asshole and didn’t even try to reciprocate.  Or, to be entirely, drunkenly honest, she didn’t even get to touch Ingrid and that’s a fucking shame. 

She looks Ingrid up and down and Ingrid’s eyebrow is raised when she makes it back up to her face. 

“Maybe you should go home and sleep this off before you wander off a cliff or something.” Ingrid smirks, again, smirky-smirkerson, and Smitelout wonders what would happen if she just kissed her.  It’s not like Ingrid ever issued a formal request.  “I don’t think anyone else would take that dragon of yours.” 

“I’m not done here,” Smitelout gestures at the dwindling crowd around the bonfire in the clearing behind them.  The adults—well, the old adults on the council—are all gone on some survey trip and it was a rare time to actually relax without the chief appearing out of nowhere and giving everyone jobs.  Eret tried, of course, fucking twerp, but enough people felt like ignoring him that it’s still been fun.  “I think I’m going to go get another drink, actually, some asshole stole my last one…”  She tries to take her cup back from Ingrid and Ingrid holds it over her head before setting it on a nearby boulder and catching her wrist when she reaches for it. 

See?  Ingrid doesn’t ask, she just…fucking starts touching Smitelout like it doesn’t light her whole chest on fire.  Ingrid has to remember that Smitelout likes her, right?  She has to know that this is some kind of torture not being able to touch her back. 

“Ok, yeah, you’ve had enough.”  Ingrid starts dragging her on the path away from the bonfire, “you can crash at the chief’s house, it’s closer than yours.” 

“No,” Smitelout yanks at Ingrid’s grip because this isn’t part of the plan, Ingrid isn’t supposed to take care of her.  She wants to take care of Ingrid.  Hopefully naked, that would be good.  “My house is just over there,” she points and Ingrid stops, raising that stupid, beautiful eyebrow at her. 

Smitelout wants to kiss it and almost does, but Ingrid starts talking before she can. 

“That’s the exact opposite of where your house is, Thor’s beard, how much did you have?” 

“Nearly enough,” Smitelout huffs, stumbling along almost dutifully after Ingrid as she trudges up the short hill to the chief’s house.  It’s dark, and that’s fine, maybe even better than whatever half plan she had because it looks very private there. 

She can just…bring it up.  Just, ‘hey Ingrid, I’d like to return the favor of you shoving me up against walls and doing sex to me’.  That’d work.  It’s almost as direct as just trying it and a little politer than Ingrid’s tactics. 

Just as they’re walking up to the house, the door opens and Eret slips out, moving exaggeratedly slowly like he’s trying to close the door silently behind him.  He looks stupid and Smitelout laughs, causing him to whirl around so fast he whacks his forehead on the door. 

“Oh!  Hey Ingrid, uh, I didn’t realize you weren’t already upstairs.”  He rubs his head, “and um, hi Smitelout?  Didn’t expect to see you here…ever, I guess.” 

“Nice forehead,” Smitelout snickers and Ingrid smacks her in the arm, metal fingers stinging across her bicep. 

“What’s up with her?” Eret frowns and Ingrid shakes her head. 

“She’s really drunk, I was going to let her sleep it off in Stoick’s room instead of letting her stumble into a wild dragon nest or something.” 

“Not exactly doing the village a favor with that one…”  Eret rolls his eyes like he’s so smart and his scruffy beard doesn’t look dumb as Hel. 

“Yeah, whatever, I’m sure you’re sneaking out to do something chiefly right now, aren’t you?”  Ingrid wraps her arm almost possessively around Smitelout’s waist and she thinks she knows what that means and where this is going. 

Maybe that’s the way to do this.  Let Ingrid start and then flip it around at some point.  That’d be kind of nice, reminding Ingrid that she can be boss too. 

“What do you mean?  Of course—I mean, it’s a secret chiefly thing I can’t tell you about, but I totally cleared it with Mom before she left.  She doesn’t care—I mean, she knows.  She cares, because it’s deeply important—”

“Uh huh,” Ingrid hauls Smitelout forward by her waist, “say hi to Fuse for me—”

“I’m not going to see Fuse,” he lies, his face going bright red, “don’t tell Mom that—”

“I’ve got better things to do than tattle on you to Mom,” Ingrid rolls her eyes, yanking the door open with no concern for keeping it quiet.  It’s a heavy door, the kind of door that she could conceivably be pushed against and made out with.  Just like, as an option.  It’s on the table. 

The table looks sturdy too. 

“Yeah, like take care of drunk Smitelout, apparently--”

“Why don’t you just get married and get your own house if you don’t like what I’m doing in this one?” Ingrid practically flings Smitelout inside and faces out through the cracked door. 

“Don’t you start in on that too,” Eret huffs and Ingrid shuts the door, shaking her head. 

“What’s that about Chief Twerpling getting married?”  Smitelout stumbles and catches herself on the table.  Being alone with Ingrid is clearing her head and muddying it all at once, her heart racing burning off alcohol at roughly the same speed as she realizes what it means that Ingrid brought her here to be alone. 

She’s not saying that Ingrid likes her, she obviously doesn’t, Smitelout isn’t that lucky, but she does seem to have a real habit of getting her alone and getting her pants off. 

“He’s making a big deal out of it,” Ingrid points at the stairs and waits for Smitelout to start climbing them before following.  Smitelout heats up, the imagined bore of Ingrid’s gaze digging into her back.  “I don’t know why, but it got rid of him.” 

“Why’d you want to be rid of him?”  Smitelout asks at the top of the stairs, breath catching in her throat when Ingrid turns to face her, arms crossed.  She looks good in the dark and that doesn’t make sense.  Nothing much does right now, honestly, and Smitelout wants to kiss her, because that’s just as far out of reality as being in her house, alone at night. 

“You saw how twitchy he was being,” Ingrid rolls her eyes and points over Smitelout’s shoulder.  “There’s an extra bed in Stoick’s room, if you throw up in there, you’re cleaning it up.” 

“I’m not going to throw up,” Smitelout scowls and then the expression drops, “wait, in your little brother’s room?” 

“That’s what I said,” Ingrid opens the door behind her to reveal a room lit by a long-burning lantern with a chair next to a table and a bed covered in rumpled furs.  Her room.  Smitelout’s mouth feels dry even as she can feel this going off-track.  “Goodnight.” 

“Hey wait,” Smitelout follows her into her room just far enough to stop the door from closing with her foot. 

“Do you need water or something?”  Ingrid cocks her head, tone sharp but offering, and people don’t take care of Smitelout like Ingrid does.  Not getting her water or getting her off.  Who takes care of Ingrid? 

“No,” Smitelout takes the last step forward to grab Ingrid’s waist and lean up to kiss her.  It feels different when she’s the one stunned, her chin pointy and her lips still but warm.  She makes a muffled sound of confusion but not anger and her hands land on Smitelout’s shoulders, pushing back. 

“What are you doing?”  She laughs, tucking a free strand of hair behind Smitelout’s ear.  It’s a bemused expression, like she’s not taking this seriously and Smitelout wants to make her.  It’s not a joke. 

“What’s it look like?”  Smitelout’s neck tingles with Ingrid’s gentle touch behind her ear as she kisses her again, stumbling in her attempt to push her back towards the bed.  She lands in the chair instead, almost dainty, her hands held out like she’s planning to catch Smitelout if she falls. 

“Oh,” Ingrid’s lips twitch into half a smile, “you’re that kind of drunk.  Ok, I should have guessed that.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  Smitelout leans over her again, hands sliding down from her shoulders to her waist, fingers curling in her soft wool shirt.  Her ribs are firm and warm underneath it and she thinks about finally touching all that smooth golden skin.  Her heart throbs in her chest and she accidentally nips at Ingrid’s lower lip.  Ingrid pulls back with a breathy laugh, scratching the back of Smitelout’s head with gentle fingernails under her braid. 

“Gods, you got yourself worked up, come here.”  Ingrid pulls her back in, taking control of the kiss in a way Smitelout didn’t necessarily want but also can’t say no to, because her lips are so soft and she’s tugging at the waistband of Smitelout’s leggings with the hand not on the back of her head.  They fall down around her knees and Ingrid tugs her forward with a warm hand on the back of her thigh. 

She trips and somehow ends up on Ingrid’s lap in a way that feels orchestrated, but she doesn’t have proof or the wherewithal to gather any because Ingrid’s hand is on her, rubbing quickly with her warm fingertip, the cold metal ones tickling her leg.  She gasps and Ingrid’s tongue is back in her mouth, tangling urgently with her own. 

Ok, so it’s not the plan, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel good and Smitelout leans into the kiss, the wooden chair creaking underneath their weight as she tries not to buck into the motion.  Ingrid tastes like mead and something else, and there’s a slightly sloppy nature to the kiss that makes Smitelout think she must be kind of drunk too.  And that’s even better, because somehow, Ingrid’s reaction when drunk is to haul her onto her lap and do this.  Smitelout moans and Ingrid swallows it before kissing along Smitelout’s jaw. 

“This what you were hoping for?”  She noses at Smitelout’s ear and nibbles it almost a little too hard.  Smitelout moans and thinks of doing this to Ingrid.  And Gods, would it make her feel this warm?  Would she shake like Smitelout’s shoulders are now?  Smitelout moans and Ingrid rubs harder, her other hand uncharacteristically soft on her lower back. 

“Not exactly,” Smitelout huffs out and Ingrid laughs, sucking too hard on her neck, like she hopes to leave a bruise. 

Smitelout wants to do that too, she wants to drag her teeth along Ingrid’s neck and leave little red trails to remind her of it for days to come.  She wants to stop this thing where they go weeks without acknowledging this.  She wants Ingrid to remember how it felt every time she sees her reflection. 

That thought makes her moan again and Ingrid practically growls in her ear, hand on her back wrapping around her waist and holding her just on the verge of too tight.  Not that Ingrid could ever hold her too tight, there’s no such thing as being too close.  She grabs Ingrid’s chin with a shaking hand and pulls her back into a kiss. 

And Ingrid is distracted, sloppier than before, even as her finger slips into Smitelout and her thumb takes up the rubbing.  Smitelout finds her waist again, working her shirt up to feel the warm skin above the leather waistband of her skirt.  Ingrid’s breath catches in her throat and she pushes hard into Smitelout, her finger curling perfectly into that too sensitive spot inside of her. 

Smitelout’s toes curl in her boots and she pulls back to bite her lip, riding the molten wave of pleasure as it courses through her, her legs shaking.  Her knees clamp together, holding Ingrid’s hand inside of her until the tremors slow to a general unsteadiness.  She feels less drunk now and far more determined and Ingrid pulls her hand out, slapping Smitelout’s hand away from her waist with too much clumsy force. 

“Careful,” she glares but kisses Smitelout on the cheek anyway, “next time just ask, you don’t have to get sloppy drunk, alright?” 

“What are you talking about?”  Smitelout reaches for Ingrid’s face, pulling her into another kiss, trying to convey the leading escalation that Ingrid does so well.  Ingrid laughs and pulls back, patting her knee. 

“You can ask if you want some help, like I said, it’s fun for me too.”  Ingrid kisses her temple then her shoulder, rubbing her back and shoving gently.  “Come on, you need to go sleep this off.” 

“I’m not tired,” she kisses Ingrid’s neck and tangles one hand in her braid.  Her hair smells like bonfire and a musky, sweet smell that can only be described as Ingrid and Smitelout feels for the hem of her shirt again.  Ingrid catches her wrist. 

“What are you doing?” 

“It’s your turn,” Smitelout kisses Ingrid’s neck again but Ingrid shoves at her hip until she stands up to avoid falling.  Standing makes her feel exposed and she fumbles for her leggings. 

Ingrid takes the chance to stand up, adjusting her skirt and crossing her arms. 

“I don’t want a turn, alright?  Just go—sleep and forget all this.  Please.” 

“You’re saying please?”  Smitelout scoffs, yanking her leggings into place, “what’d I do wrong?” 

“I don’t—I don’t want anything from you, that’s not part of this,” Ingrid shakes her head, taking a big step back when Smitelout takes a small one forward. 

Oh. 

“You don’t—”

“No, I really don’t.” 

“Let me finish,” Smitelout’s voice shakes, that post orgasm joy fading to cold in an instant, “you don’t want me to…you know, touch you, or whatever?” 

“No thank you.” 

“Fucking Odin, you said thank you,” her heart plummets through her stomach like a boulder, “you—I—”

“It’s just not part of what I was doing—”

“What _you_ were doing?”  Smitelout’s heart jolts, a painful retaliation against her ribcage, and everything that was just warm about her turns cold instantaneously.  “By yourself?” 

“I don’t need to explain myself to you, alright?”  Ingrid crosses her arms, eyes wild and pained. 

She’s probably embarrassed.  Smitelout is still _Smitelout_ after all. 

“No.  No, you don’t.  I get it.” 

“Then why do you sound so pissed off?”  Ingrid sounds legitimately confused or upset or some combination of the two and Smitelout wants to hug her as much as she wants to fucking cry or something, and that’s just not something she does. 

So she does what’s more comfortable and snaps. 

“Because, you aren’t surprising me at all, Hofferson,” the old moniker burns in her throat, “you never saw us as equals, I was just someone—”

“Someone what?”  Ingrid wipes her eyes even though she’s not crying, she’s just bright, burning with anger Smitelout can’t place and doesn’t want to in case it lands on her. 

“Someone you could beat to feet better about yourself.”  She chokes on the reality of the thing, coughing to cover up something like a drunk, dry sob that’s so different from the warmth of a few minutes ago.  That was fake.  This was all fake. 

“That’s not true,” Ingrid shakes her head.  “I—I can’t—”

“You don’t have to explain yourself, remember?”  Smitelout looks at her for another second, trying to commit the last instant of vulnerable Ingrid she’ll probably ever get to memory.  “Don’t say you’ll see me around.” 

“Smitelout, I—”

She reaches out like she’s going to say something else, but the chances of it being painful are too high and Smitelout slams the door in her face, stomping down the stairs.  It had to end sometime.  She should have ended it before now but that’s what hope and stupid feelings do. 


	4. Fourth

Ingrid trains with her axe.  When it gets dull, she gets Eret to sharpen it with a file instead of going to the forge.  She doesn’t pick up her hatchet, she doesn’t need it anyway.  She tries not to think about Smitelout and fails every time she uses her right hand for anything. 

She fails when she can’t sleep, thinking about the fact that she messed it up, even if she can’t put words to what it was.  She knew Smitelout liked her and she instigated anyway, knowing she couldn’t ever like her back.  She repeated even when it felt like a lifeline, even after she promised herself she’d never depend on any of those ever again. 

Part of her eternally wishes she’d let Smitelout try, because Ingrid wasn’t disgusted when her hands slipped under her shirt.  She was scared.  And she let that drive her, she let fear make a decision that’s left her life so quiet.  Everyone else is talking to her but no one else pauses to really drive it in and make sure she hears it.  And she’s never decided anything based on fear before.  Rejection, betrayal, the eternal feeling that she didn’t agree when to charge and when to back down, yeah.  But fear?  That’s never won. 

And more than that, she feels conflicted looking back on it all, because well…Smitelout made her a hand and fought with her and kissed her so clumsily and eagerly.  Smitelout has a cute nose and too many wrong opinions and everything about her is soft and welcoming and responsive.  And she makes sure Ingrid hears her.  And she helps her with things she can’t ask for. 

Ingrid hasn’t had a crush since she was fifteen, but this feels similar.  Similar but more than that.  Deeper and more real, because it started in a time when she needed it and it always lived above her expectations.  She leaned on it, on Smitelout, and the fact that it’s gone is the freshest hole even if it’s not the deepest. 

At some point, between her fingers and that night a month ago after the bonfire, what was initially grudging friendship turned into real affection on her part.  She liked Smitelout, she wanted to see her happy and relaxed and supported. 

And it’s only grown since not being able to check up on her.  She likes her and her freckled nose and square jaw and the way she scowls at everything until she’s completely sure that it’s not a threat.  She likes the way she can rant about anything and how pretty she looks when she laughs.

She’s fucked with a crush she’s too damaged to do anything about, and fear still reigns, no matter how much she wishes she could stop it. 

It takes an hour longer than normal to get the feeling out one morning after not sleeping and Ingrid drops her axe around midday, both elbows throbbing, her right one worse like it has been.  She’s not used to feeling sore after taking out a copse of trees and that doesn’t make her feel any better.  She stuffs a change of clothes and a bar of soap into a satchel and pulls one of Rolf’s oversized shirts over her head, stomping towards the smaller hot springs towards the north of town, where the crowds are always smaller and almost no one uses them on off days of the week. 

Her hair is sticking to the nape of her neck and she scratches it as she trots the last few steps down the hill, dropping her bag on one of the fallen logs serving as benches around the pool edge.  She doesn’t notice anyone else in the pool until her boots are off and then she spies the head on the other side of the pool. 

All long dark hair and cute nose and shit.  Shit, this is bad. 

“Fuck,” she trips on her skirt, leggings halfway down her thighs, “you scared the Hel out of me.” 

“Don’t worry,” Smitelout scoffs, crossing her arms above the water and gods, she’s naked, a pale ghost blurred by the shimmering surface of the water in the sun, “I don’t bite.  I don’t even touch.” 

“I’ll come back later,” Ingrid fumbles for her boot and her leggings at the same time and her metal finger bends wrong, poking her hard in the thigh.  She swallows that stare and looks up to see Smitelout staring at her with hard blue eyes. 

“You can take a bath, for Thor’s sake,” she screws up her face and puts her nose in the air, crossing her arms more tightly and making the part of her chest above water more painfully obvious, “unless I’m that repulsive—”

“I never said that,” Ingrid snaps, shoving her leggings back down and stepping out of them.  “Stop putting words in my mouth, I didn’t say anything like that.” 

In fact, she’s the furthest thing from repulsive and it’s confusing as Hel. 

“Whatever,” Smitelout slouches down in the water, crossing her legs. She’s naked.  So naked.  And the water is blurring it but just knowing it’s there is enough to fluster Ingrid as she fumbles with her clothes. 

Ingrid’s mouth is dry and she’s scared and angry and most of all sad and she pushes that all back, tugging her leggings off and untying her breast bindings under her shirt.  She pulls them out from underneath and drops them onto the stack of the rest of her clothes.  She grabs the bar of soap from her bag and glances at Smitelout again before unfastening her fingers, placing them gently on the pile of her things and climbing into the spring. 

It’s almost too hot and she hisses, leaving soap on the edge of the pool and dipping underwater just long enough to get her hair wet.  When she comes up, Smitelout clears her throat. 

“What?” 

“If you’re trying to prove a point, please spare me.” 

Please sounds like a verbal spear gouging straight into Ingrid’s heart and she hugs the wool shirt closer around herself.  It’s heavy and hot when wet but it’s better than being exposed or filthy, like she was those first couple of weeks when she was scared of washday. 

“I’m not proving anything, I’m just here to take a bath.” 

“Not on washday?”  Smitelout sounds more interested than she wants to, clearly and Ingrid tries to take comfort she doesn’t deserve in that.  Smitelout still cares, that’s a thing she hasn’t lost yet even though Smitelout is shaking off the feeling as fast as possible, apparently. 

“It gets crowded.”  She sinks down further in the water until it laps at her chin.  It’s hard not to look at the pale, hazy outline of Smitelout under the surface, but not as hard as it is to avoid the piercing blue gaze above. Her dark hair is wet and half plastered to the sides of her face and her freckles are more obvious than ever.  “Why are you here now if it’s so weird?” 

“I spilled dirty oil all over myself, alright?  Ingrid the Bathing Police—”

“I’m just trying to make conversation—”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Smitelout glares, cheeks red, eyes averted to her own knees.  Ingrid wants to reach out but she knows it’s not welcome and more than that, it’s not something she should do.  She’s not cut out for something like that, not anymore. 

“Well…” she exhales, wringing her hands together underwater and crossing her legs, “I want to talk to you, so I’m just going to talk.” 

“Right, it’s about your plan, I forgot.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  Ingrid folds her knees up in front of her, hugging them and crossing her ankles. 

“It’s about whatever you’re doing right now,” Smitelout scoffs, failing to find that bruising glare that Ingrid used to love crumbling.  Now she just looks sad, the corner of her mouth twitching.  “I almost forgot.” 

“What are you talking about?”  Ingrid digs her chin into her knee, glaring over the surface of the water even as Smitelout throws her arms in the air, exposing herself like she wants Ingrid to look. 

She does.  It makes her feel worse and better and more confused and she drags her eyes back up to Smitelout’s furious face. 

“You know, you should really write up a contract or something—”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.” 

“Let me finish,” Smitelout leans one arm on the side of the spring, the other waving in the air, and Ingrid feels like she’s watching something she doesn’t actually get to participate in anymore.  It’s a shadow of what she felt at the bonfire, watching her brothers living happy lives while Spitleaf faked a smile and held Haggar Larson’s hand.  Everyone else has something or someone. 

“I’m not stopping you.”  Ingrid snorts to herself, amused and depressed when Smitelout’s eyes light up with vibrant blue fury.  Ingrid may be the first person to pull her head out of her ass, but she won’t be the last, not when Smitelout looks like that when she’s pissed. 

“I’m just trying to say, if you’ll stop interrupting me, that you should have some kind of contract on hand—”

“Funny,” Ingrid raises her pale bad hand above the surface and waves it at Smitelout.  “I get it.” 

“You know that’s not what I meant.”  Smitelout fidgets, crossing her arms again and sinking down further in the water.  The pool isn’t that big.  She could bump Smitelout’s feet with her own if she just stretched out, but she doesn’t necessarily want this to feel more real than it already does.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.  She realized she liked someone, this should be happy.  Nothing is how it’s supposed to be. 

“Sorry, you were telling me about some contract I should have—”

“What the Hel, Ingrid?”  Smitelout snaps, emotion so big she can’t hold it in and Ingrid envies that.  She misses  being so close to someone so bursting with everything she was feeling at any given moment.  Now there’s always room to keep it inside, and more than that, always a reason.  She doesn’t want anyone to know about it, or she didn’t, until it started feeling like Smitelout might have something useful to say or do to help.  “You just…do _that_ and expect—”

“I didn’t expect anything,” Ingrid presses on her closed eyes with her knuckles until she sees flashes of light.  “And what did I do, exactly?  What was so bad?” 

“You…” Smitelout struggles for it, cheeks flushing redder than the hot water made them already and Ingrid hugs her knees again and watches her. 

“Are you going to answer, or should I start in with my bath?” 

“You just...kept having sex with me and getting me off without letting me touch you or reciprocate at all and—”  She huffs, crossing her arms again, and it’s cute that saying it out loud embarrasses her.  It makes Ingrid want to make her say it and erase this horrible conversation’s aftertaste. But that arrangement is dead along with a bunch of other things she almost got back.  “And what did I get out of that?  What was in that for me?” 

“That’s not obvious?” Ingrid hates herself for smirking.  She hates herself for a lot of reasons, the worst of them being spinning a split second too slow, but this might take second prize.  Losing her fingers was instantaneous but losing Smitelout is dragging on and on and she doesn’t even know when Smitelout started to feel like something she had enough to lose. “I would have thought it was obvious what you were getting out of that arrangement.” 

“You knew I liked you.” 

Past tense.  Huh.  That stings worse than Ingrid expects and she hides her right hand under the water again.  Ingrid nods and Smitelout deflates, shrinking further into the spring. 

“I never thought you liked me or anything, I’m not stupid, but I thought that –you know, when I realized it wasn’t just a one off or a dream, I thought that whatever it was would at least even out at some point.”  She frowns, staring at her lap and looking profoundly miserable.  It’s a kind of misery that Ingrid understands, there’s an acceptance of it like it’s something to learn to live with. 

And seeing Smitelout feel that way, struggling in an unwinnable conflict in her head makes Ingrid want to stand up to something for the first time in months.  It’s not an army or even a conviction, but Smitelout’s glower isn’t a small adversary either.  Maybe it’s even something she can fix.  Maybe she can turn the tide for someone else even if she’s already lost her own fight. 

“It’s not stupid for me to like you.” 

“You don’t,” she shrugs a slack shoulder like she doesn’t even care that she’s naked and flashing parts of herself that Ingrid can’t look away from above the surface.  But those glimpses make Ingrid brave too, because she wants to get back to where they were more than she can say.  Or where she was, she guesses, she didn’t really include Smitelout in that decision process but maybe if she did, it’d be different. 

Maybe she could touch Smitelout to feel better with the full knowledge that she likes her too and maybe that could last at least a little while longer.  At least until something clicks and she has something else real to hold onto. 

“Don’t put words in my mouth—”

“I’m not going to argue about this,” Smitelout huffs, “it’s stupid and—”

“Since when have you turned down a stupid argument?”  Ingrid unfolds her legs, feet flat against the rough bottom of the pool.  “And it’s not stupid, because it’s true.  I like you, alright?  You happy now?” 

“Stop bullshitting me,” Smitelout gestures at her neatly folded pile of clothes on the bench behind her, “you know you don’t need to do that to get in my pants so why start now?” 

“It was never about getting into your pants.”  The truth is a nervous ball of acid in Ingrid’s throat and she swallows against it, trying to drag it out bit by bit.  “That’s—I like you.” 

“So you’re trying to tell me right now that you knew you liked me this whole time and instead of just, I don’t know, telling me, you shoved me up against walls and counters and had your wicked fway with me—”

“That makes it sound like you weren’t participating, which—”

“You wouldn’t let me!”  Smitelout snaps, angry flush spreading down her chest to exposed parts of her Ingrid hasn’t seen half hovering out of the water.  Ingrid tries not to stare and fails again, biting the inside of her cheek against everything she’s practically conditioned herself to do. 

She’s sad.  Smitelout is beautiful.  She’d feel better if Smitelout was smiling and boneless and grasping at her.  She ruined that for herself too. 

“I didn’t realize I liked you, ok? I—just since last time, I put it together after you were so upset and—and I hated that I upset you and I missed you and your stupid arguments.”  Ingrid waits for Smitelout to respond but she just stares, reading Ingrid’s expression and looking for a mistake.  “And I think at some point, you kind of became my friend, and I messed it up.” 

Smitelout pushes wet hair behind her ear and sinks down further in the water, hands on her lap. 

“Are you going to say anything?”  Ingrid prompts after a minute of tense silence, tugging her wet shirt tight around her torso and holding it there like it’ll keep her grounded.  Something about the water makes her feel like she could float away and she’d be powerless to stop it. 

“I’m trying to figure out if you’re telling the truth.”  Smitelout scowls. 

“When have I ever lied to you?” 

“Never,” Smitelout crosses her arms, chewing on her bottom lip and thinking for another second.  “That’s why I don’t know what it would look like.” 

“Why would I lie about this now?  That doesn’t make any sense, I just told you that I like you—”

“Then why didn’t you want me to touch you?”  She says it like it’s a kill shot and Ingrid tries to brush it off. 

“Because it wasn’t about me—”

“That’s the exact opposite of what you said,” Smitelout sounds hurt again, and Ingrid can’t even fix that right.  “Which time were you lying?” 

“Both?”  Ingrid wipes her face, fingertips starting to wrinkle from sitting in the water for too long.  “Neither?  I—”  She growls, frustrated with herself, her own weakness, the fact that every straight line of thinking in her brain is warped around the same stupid thing.  She should have coped with it by now, she knows that, and every day she can’t she feels more and more pathetic.  “It was about making you feel good because that made me feel better.” 

“Better about what?”  Smitelout sighs like she doesn’t think she’s going to get an answer to that one and she’s right, Ingrid can’t form the words.  She wants someone to guess without her asking them too, she wants someone else to put it together outside of her so that she doesn’t have to relive it at every seam in the logic of it.  “If you like me, why wouldn’t you let me even try?” 

“I….it doesn’t have anything to do with you, ok?  I don’t want you to touch me because I’m defective—”

“What?” Smitelout doesn’t even let that sit as an idea, half standing out of the water before seemingly noticing she’s naked for the first time and sitting back down, leaning forward like she’s tucking into an argument she’s almost excited about. 

“I just said, I’m _defective_.  I don’t want—”

00000

“Ok, back the fuck up, what does that even mean?  You’re the most irritatingly perfect person I’ve ever met.”  Smitelout saw something in Ingrid’s expression break and for the first time ever, she’s worried she pushed her too far.  The pain in her cool gray eyes is palpable and Smitelout wants to hug her, even though that’s not something she’s ever done or had an urge to do.  It looks like Ingrid needs it, the way she’s curled in a ball in that hideous wet sweater. 

That Smitelout was sure she wore into the bath as a spiteful thing to keep Smitelout from seeing her naked, but now it looks like…like a security blanket or something, as if that’s something Ingrid has ever needed. 

“How many people have you met?”  Ingrid laughs and it’s more like a cough as she hugs her knees closer to her chest.  “I’m—I’m broken, ok?  I don’t need—”

“Are you about to cry?”  Smitelout mumbles, standing up again, briefly and scooting an arm’s reach away from her.  “I shouldn’t have picked a fight with you—”

“Stop it,” Ingrid glares at her, gray eyes leaking sadness like a cloth bag trying to hold onto water, “I should be able to have an argument—”

“Maybe you don’t have to right now.” 

“No,” Ingrid kicks at Smitelout’s knee like it doesn’t make her bare ass scrape across stone. 

“Hey!” 

“No, you’re the one person that doesn’t treat me like glass, don’t start now.” 

“You just said you’re defective and you look like you’re going to cry!”  Smitelout gestures at Ingrid, “and then you kicked me, which, thanks for scraping my ass for me—”

“Yeah, you’re welcome, that was obviously on purpose,” Ingrid sniffs, a few almost lazy tears leaking from her eyes as she leans forward, feet planted on the floor of the spring.  “That’s what I was trying to do.” 

“Well, you succeeded, and more than that, you succeeded in getting me really fucking confused about what the Hel is going on here.” 

“What’s to be confused about.  You like me, I realized I like you—”

“And somehow you think you’re defective—”

“Why are you so hung up on that?”  Ingrid cocks her head, eyes rimmed with red and voice a bit thick, like it’s coming through the water instead of above it. 

“Because it doesn’t make sense,” Smitelout gestures at Ingrid and even though it doesn’t matter and she’s trying not to, she looks at the line of her waist through the soggy wool shirt.  Wet Ingrid looks younger, more vulnerable in a way that makes her piercing glare and slow dripping tears even more confusing.  Her skin is freckled and pink from the heat where it’s not covered and her expression is sharp and defensive.  “You’re only the most annoying, perfect—mmph!” 

Ingrid kisses her, hard enough it’s almost painful, her hand tangled in Smitelout’s wet hair as she pulls her closer.  Smitelout pushes back on her shoulder and Ingrid pulls away, resting her forehead against Smitelout’s. 

“Sorry, I—”

“Don’t say sorry,” it’s not what Smitelout wants to hear because it’s not something Ingrid should say.  Ingrid doesn’t back down.  Ingrid decides and follows through and it feels like some link of that chain is in danger of breaking and Smitelout doesn’t want to let it.  “Just tell me what you’re doing.” 

“It—Kissing you makes me feel better, alright?  It makes me feel like I’m doing something—one thing—right.  Like I’ve got this… _you_ that I haven’t disappointed yet.” 

“Where’d you get that idea?”  Smitelout snorts, tentatively reaching up to rest her hand on the side of Ingrid’s neck.  Ingrid jumps at the contact, pressing her nose into Smitelout’s forehead.  “You disappoint me every time you insist on kicking my ass.” 

“I’m not joking,” Ingrid whispers, peppering shaky kisses down across Smitelout’s temple to her jaw.  She pauses there and inhales, her bad hand wrapped in shirt sleeve sliding across Smitelout’s chest to her opposite shoulder and resting there. 

“Neither am I.”  Smitelout’s thumb strokes a slow, careful line along Ingrid’s neck and Ingrid swallows hard. 

“Why’d we have to do this when you’re naked?”  Ingrid laughs, breath shaking slightly, and Smitelout can feel the heat of her gaze as she looks down through the water.  Smitelout shifts, silently self-conscious as Ingrid’s hand moves from Smitelout’s hair to her waist. 

“What’s wrong with me being naked?”  She doesn’t know whether to puff up or sink down and the line of Ingrid’s damp wool sweater against her thighs is strikingly apparent.  Smitelout feels exposed and it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a weird thing and more than that, the whiplash or arguing to Ingrid looking at her with desperate and half lidded eyes is getting to her. 

“I can’t focus on arguing with you.”  In an abrupt motion that only Ingrid could make look graceful, she swings one long, golden leg over Smitelout’s lap and sits down, straddling her thighs, before kissing her again.  This kiss is different, it poses a question, and Smitelout pulls away from it to answer it with a question of her own. 

“What are you doing?”  She catches Ingrid’s hand as it slides down her stomach, itchy wool dragging over her skin. 

“What’s it feel like?”  Ingrid quirks an eyebrow, kissing Smitelout again and scooting slightly closer along her thighs. 

Smitelout hates what she’s going to say before she says it.  She also hates herself for saying it.  And she hates how Ingrid pouts when she catches her other wrist, holding them both in loose grips. 

“I don’t know, avoiding the issue?” 

Ingrid pauses and Smitelout shrugs, trying to stick with what feels right in her head when Ingrid’s hand on her would feel better than that.  But Ingrid was right before, this is about Ingrid and whatever weird hang-up she’s having. 

Even if that hang up led her to a place of liking Smitelout and sitting on her lap and Gods, what is Smitelout’s problem?  It’s not like anyone, Ingrid most of all, has ever accused her of being upstanding or considerate, so why start now?  She tugs Ingrid down into another kiss and Ingrid frees her left hand, trailing it up Smitelout’s waist to her chest and squeezing. 

Ok, yeah, this was the right choice.  Going with the obvious solution to Ingrid sitting on her lap in the hot springs is way better than talking about feelings.  Ingrid likes her, that’s unbelievable enough.  And if Ingrid likes her, that means this might happen again, especially if Smitelout doesn’t mess it up with stupid words.  Ingrid lightly pinches her nipple and Smitelout gasps.  Ingrid’s tongue slips into her mouth, pressing almost aggressively as she squeezes Smitelout’s other breast in her soggy wool covered hand. 

That shirt isn’t fair.  Yes, there’s something really hot about the way the wet fabric clings to all of Ingrid’s curves, but it still shouldn’t be there. 

Ingrid pulls back from the kiss, sliding off of Smitelout’s knees and kneeling on the bottom of the pool before shuffling forward, spreading Smitelout’s knees to kneel between them.  She kisses Smitelout’s nipple before flicking her tongue across it.  Her tongue feels almost cool against the heat of the springs and Smitelout shimpers, scrambling to grab the shoulders of Ingrid’s wet shirt.  She’d tug it up if Ingrid didn’t distract her, switching breasts and pinching the nipple she just left with cool, gentle fingers. 

“You taste like hot springs,” Ingrid wrinkles her nose and it’s hot and adorable and Smitelout feels too big for her skin, her knees clamping shut around Ingrid’s waist so that she can’t get away this time. 

“Maybe because I’m in the hot springs.” 

“It’s very…Sulphur-y,” she nuzzles Smitelout’s breast before sucking her nipple into her mouth again and laving it with a dedicated tongue. 

Smitelout groans and Ingrid pulls back with a grin that manages to be teasing and tender at the same time.  Her blonde hair is floating like gold in the water and she slides her right hand up Smitelout’s thigh to stroke the wet curls between her legs.  Smitelout shudders, because yes, she wants that, she wants Ingrid’s hand on her all the time, but Ingrid is still wearing that stupid shirt and from the way her nipples are hard and straining against the fabric, it can’t be comfortable. 

“Take this off,” Smitelout tugs at the wet wool, sliding her hands down to Ingrid’s waist and pulling it up an inch or so.  Ingrid flinches, her smile frozen on her face.  “I just want—”

“I don’t need a turn,” Ingrid starts kissing her neck, finger sliding abruptly down and inside, curling against that sensitive spot inside of her at the same time as she presses outside of her with her palm.  Smitelout jumps, clinging to Ingrid’s waist as the rough wall of the hot spring scrapes at her back.  “I just need you making that face,” Ingrid starts kissing the side of her neck, wet wool shirt dragging over Smitelout’s hyper sensitive nipples and making her squeak, “and you’re so responsive, I barely even have to touch you.”  She sounds awed rather than teasing as she pulls her finger out and rubs the outside, almost too gently, her lips planting slow kisses across Smitelout’s shoulder.  “It’s because you need to relax,” Ingrid’s voice is yak butter melting into hot bread and she cups Smitelout’s breast, thumb flicking across the hard nub at the tip, “I admire the dedication,” Ingrid looks up and bites her lip, pearly white teeth digging into partially chapped pink, “and _these_.”  She squeezes and Smitelout’s knees clamp tighter to her waist at the compliment, “but occasionally, you need a break.” 

“Ingrid,” Smitelout isn’t sure if it’s a plea or an attempt to start an argument about that stupid wet shirt, but Ingrid takes it as the first, shuffling her hands so that her left is between Smitelout’s legs.  The two fingers that slide into place are familiar but clumsy, rocking slowly to find a rhythm.  It’s all Ingrid, no metal to be found, and that makes her feel closer and more inhibited all at once. 

It’s not that Smitelout misses the metal finger, exactly, it’s more that it helped her feel like she was contributing something to this when it was in use. 

“You know, it’s practically a public service,” Ingrid twists her fingers, swallowing Smitelout’s moan in an almost chaste kiss as her right hand, wrapped in damp wool, rises to squeeze at her chest, “winding you down for a little whilie.  It’s probably the most useful thing I do around here,” she laughs but there’s an odd seed of truth to it that sticks in Smitelout’s mind even as Ingrid starts rubbing with a purposeful thumb.  “Is that going to be enough?” 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Smitelout groans, heels digging into the backs of Ingrid’s thighs and pulling her closer.  Being asked is hot.  Being expected to answer is hotter, even though Ingrid is pumping harder and faster, her lips soft and breath harsh against Smitelout’s ear.  “I—I don’t—you’ve never had a problem before so I assume so.” 

“Left hand,” Ingrid kisses the corner of her jaw, pinching her nipple with rough wool covered fingers.  Smitelout squeaks and Ingrid curls her fingers.  “Seems to be working out for you though.” 

“Stop teasing me,” Smitelout hates the whiny tone in her voice as much as Ingrid seems to like it, nibbling Smitelout’s ear and pressing closer as her fingers speed up. 

“I’m not teasing you.  You’d know it if I were teasing you.”  Her voice is husky and it goes straight to Smitelout’s core, a bolt of pleasure dragging her dangerously close to the edge.  She bucks into Ingrid’s hand, biting her lip against a whimper trying to leak out.  “You’re the tease, keeping all those little sounds quiet.  I want to hear them, I want to hear what this does to you—”

“Fuck,” Smitelout swears as it’s all finally enough, her heels clamping down on the back of Ingrid’s thighs and holding her close.  Her hand is still moving, slowly, almost tenderly, and it makes the overwhelming molten feeling in Smitelout’s hands worse.  It’s like Ingrid is melting her down and remaking her into something new.  Something pliant to her and only her. 

“Better?”  Ingrid asks gently, dropping fluttery kisses along Smitelout’s neck and chest.  All of her skin is too sensitive now, between the heat inside of her and the hot water against it.  She shudders, an echo of what just happened surging through her as Ingrid pulls her fingers out and rubs the outside of Smitelout’s thigh.  “Also, you’re cutting off circulation with the death grip, babe.” 

“Babe?”  Smitelout regains control of her legs just enough to let them go slack on either side of Ingrid’s hips.  Cutting off circulation is an exaggeration, obviously, because Ingrid has to be dramatic.  “That’s original.” 

“Can you go five minutes without complaining about anything?”  Ingrid laughs, cupping Smitelout’s chin. 

“Not when you keep giving me shit to complain about.” 

“Yes, you have so much to whine about right now,” Ingrid kisses her, so chaste it almost doesn’t make sense, “are you falling asleep?  Because that seems like a solid way to drown.” 

“No,” Smitelout pries her eyes open and she may have actually been drifting off.  It’s not her fault, Ingrid is the one making her so thordamned tired when she’s in the bath after a long day of work.  Ingrid raises her eyebrow and swipes her thumb across Smitelout’s cheek. 

This is when she leaves, isn’t it? 

This is when she’ll make some excuse and flounce off like she didn’t just rock Smitelout’s reality a dozen times over.  It’s inevitable unless Smitelout changes it and as good as that just was, Ingrid is still half clothed and Smitelout still isn’t getting to touch her.  And there’s something about her expression, fragile and hopeful, like she’s looking for praise, that’s so out of place on her face Smitelout wants to eradicate it.

“You’re wrinkling,” Ingrid lifts Smitelout’s limp hand out of the water and shows her the wrinkled fingertips, “as much as I hate to say it, you should probably get out and get dressed.” 

“It’s not your job to take care of me.”  Smitelout blurts, brain working sluggishly around the half of a realization she had halfway through.  “Is that what this is about?  You not having a job?” 

“What?”  Ingrid recoils slightly, glaring at Smitelout in a way that means she’s on the right track.  She sits up straighter, rolling her shoulder and trying to ignore the flush of heat in her chest when Ingrid looks down at her chest almost hungrily before going back to glaring. 

“You said you were defective, is that because you don’t have a job to do?  So somehow, you’ve decided that…this,” she blushes and clears her throat, trying not to look at Ingrid’s bare legs under the water, “is your job?  That makes so much sense, oh my gods, you would get your panties in a wad about thinking you’re useless or some shit—”

“You know what?  I’m out of here,” Ingrid stands up but Smitelout catches her wrist.  Ingrid stares at the grip for a second like she’s thinking about breaking the hand in charge of it before she shakes her head and her expression softens to something pained.  “Let me go.” 

“Look, if you’re upset about not having a job or whatever, you could come work at the forge with me.”  Smitelout offers, even though it’s not really hers to offer, but she doubts Gobber would care.  “Odin knows I’ve got enough to do.” 

“Do you mean that?”  Ingrid narrows her eyes but she’s not fighting the grip, her arm hanging slack in front of her. 

“I mean, you can’t take care of your own weapons so I don’t know how good you’d be at it.  And I wouldn’t get anything done because you’d be in the way the whole time.  And you’d have to learn to, you know, forge things—”

“You think I should have a job though?”  It’s not a question so much as a test and Smitelout is surprised by how much she wants to pass it. 

“Well, duh.  It’s obviously driving you actually insane to not.” 

“Hmm,” Ingrid bites her lip, frowning another moment before the corner of her mouth twitches into part of a smile.  “It’s insane for me to choose you as my job?” 

“I’m just one person,”  Smitelout laughs, a bubble of post-orgasmic relief popping in her chest, “you’ve got a lot of drive and time on your hands.” 

“Oh, I get it,” Ingrid leans down and kisses her with tongue, a drawn-out kiss that feels dirtier for what they just did. “I should get a roster going—”

“I didn’t say that,” Smitelout tugs on Ingrid’s wrist and she kneels back down in the water, scooting between Smitelout’s knees again, “don’t hear that.  I just said to maybe find an actual job instead of pinning me against things whenever you get bored.” 

“Can I still pin you against things?”  Ingrid deadpans, a bright, teasing spark behind her eyes. 

“Well, uh, if that’s such a thing for you—”

“It is.”  Ingrid nods solemnly even as her hands find Smitelout’s waist and stroke gently, her right hand still wrapped in her sleeve. 

“Do you have any other things?” Smitelout blurts, immediately regretting it when Ingrid’s eyebrows gleefully shoot up towards her hairline.  “If it’s not a job then it an be an equal arrangement, can’t it?  I can touch you too—”

“Can we not talk about that right now?”  It’s another question that’s not really a question, butt his one is more of an order. 

“Then when are we going to talk about it?”  Smitelout frowns, “I thought you liked me—”

“Why else would I be here having this stupid fight with you?”  Ingrid’s hands are as rigid as her expression but not nearly as brittle.  Smitelout has that feeling again that she’s pushing too far and it makes her more nervous than anything else. 

“If we don’t have the stupid fight, what are we going to do?  Hold hands and cuddle?” 

“Yes.”  Ingrid grits out between her teeth and Smitelout laughs at her serious expression. 

“You want to hold my hand and cuddle me?  You’ve gone soft, Hofferson, I don’t know if I’m—oof!” 

Ingrid hugs her with enough force that it’s practically an attack, burying her face in Smitelout’s neck and inhaling smoothly.  She unwraps her arms from around Smitelout’s waist, curling them into her chest and leaning in. 

“Can you—can you just hold me?”  Her voice is thick with something Smitelout hasn’t figured out yet and she wraps her arms around Ingrid’s shoulders before even answering. 

“Uh.  Sure.” 

“Thanks,” Ingrid mumbles into her neck, tense back relaxing under Smitelout’s hands. 

Ingrid’s breathing slows and steadies like she’s the one falling asleep, but her arm unfolds enough for her hand to find Smitelout’s hip, stroking slowly.  It reminds Smitelout of the way she fiddles with her dagger handle when she’s nervous, the smooth spot she wore into the wood.  She kisses the side of Ingrid’s head, damp hair sticking to her nose and making it tickle.  Ingrid sighs. 

It’s still not moving forward.  There’s something in the way, something big and confusing, looming taller than the happiness that somehow Ingrid likes her too.  It needs to get the fuck out of Smitelout’s way because this feels like the impossible chance, the one happy choice that Jorgensons don’t usually get. 

No one has ever called Smitelout sensitive either but even she stumbles over what she’s going to ask now. 

“Can I grab your butt?” 

Ingrid doesn’t hit her.  She freezes for a second, breathing interrupted.  Smitelout can practically hear her thinking, the cogs of her mind working it over like it’s a bigger deal than it is. 

“Yes.”  She nods slightly, her tone certain and oddly heavy. 

Smitelout slides her hand down carefully, staying on top of the soggy wool shirt and curling her fingers around Ingrid’s ass.  Gods, it’s nice.  And holy Thor, Ingrid is letting her. 

“Is that—”

“I said it was fine,” Ingrid relaxes further into the hug.  “Don’t ask me if I’m ok.” 

“I wasn’t going to,” Smitelout kisses the side of her head again.  She wasn’t going to ask because she knows the answer. 

Ingrid isn’t ok. 


	5. Fifth

Ingrid wakes up well rested the morning after Smitelout held her in the hot springs until nearly sundown.  In fact, shes’ better rested than she’s been since before she left in the first place.  It’s almost jarring to wake up to see the sun streaming through the window at full force, her face warm from the light instead of the dimly flickering wall of shadows that she usually jolts awake to.  It’s the first morning since she’s been back that she’s slept past sunrise and she gets the weird feeling that she should thank Smitelout for it.  More than that, she wants to thank Smitelout for it.  For reading her mind and turning a real fight into a stupid fight and even further, into something legitimately comforting even after all of this bullshit. 

Even weirder, there’s that nagging feeling that Smitelout wasn’t reading her mind, she was just doing what felt natural and somehow, it was the right thing to do at every turn.  It makes Ingrid like her more.   She doesn’t know how she feels about that other than the fact that she wants to see Smitelout sooner rather than later. 

She’s not at the forge and when Ingrid spots her dad, he says she’s probably at home, and Ingrid isn’t really thinking when she wanders that way next, knocking hard on the solid front door. 

Someone yells something inside and Ingrid knocks again, harder. 

Smitelout yanks open the door, glaring impressively until she sees Ingrid.  Her expression goes momentarily, irritatingly adorably blank and she yanks down on the oversized shirt she’s wearing.  Her knees are bare above long wool socks and Ingrid looks at her slowly from stocking feet to loosely braided hair.  

It’s something strange to get used to.  A new kind of crush.  It’s not necessity or even comfort, but she’s not prepared for the rush of deep, chest-panging affection that accompanies the warmth in her chest while looking at Smitelout in old and fuzzy socks. 

“What do you want?”  She huffs and she doesn’t look tough at all, crossing her arms and leaning on the doorframe. 

There’s a patchy flush high on her cheeks and it makes Ingrid want to embarrass her.  Just a little, just enough to watch it spread down to her jaw. 

“Nothing,” Ingrid points over Smitelout’s shoulder, “can I come in?” 

“What?”  Smitelout scoffs, tossing her braid back over her shoulder.  “What if I’m busy?  You can’t just drop by—”

“Your dad said that he didn’t think you were busy,” Ingrid shoves her hands in her pockets, “but if you are—”

“I’m not,” she steps out of the doorway and gestures Ingrid inside, overdramatic and annoying and again, adorable.  Because somehow that’s the word that Ingrid keeps finding for her. “But just, for the future—”

“You think I’m coming over again after that welcome?”  Ingrid tries and fails for serious, grinning as she steps around Smitelout and squeezes her shoulder, looking around the main room of the house.  There are a lot of things she doesn’t recognize or care about.  It’s one of those houses where the people in it are presenting the least important things about them to distract from something else and Ingrid doesn’t know if she can deal with understanding the ins and outs of another one of those.  “Can I see your room?” 

“I thought you weren’t satisfied with the service,” Smitelout slams the door shut a little too hard, fidgeting with her shirt hem again and glaring when Ingrid notices.  The glare makes Ingrid think that she’s not wearing anything under it, and why is that where her thoughts jump to as soon as Smitelout shows up in her field of vision?   It’s magnetic and distracting and not entirely unwelcome, especially after spending so long flinching.  She doesn’t want to flinch anymore and Smitelout makes that even more real. 

It’s worse because she’s well rested and easily relaxed and Smitelout looks…comfortable.  Cozy even, like Ingrid interrupted her halfway through curling up for a nap.  That thought makes her want to join the nap and that’s a feeling she can’t say she’s ever had.  She usually wants to make people move faster, not join them in slowing down. 

“I didn’t say that,” Ingrid steps around Smitelout to look down a short hallway, “I just said you aren’t being very welcoming.” 

“My room is this way.”  She points down the hallway and glowers cutely, her nose wrinkled in the middle and just barely turned up at the end as her thick eyebrows form that barrier they seem to think is impenetrable.  To Ingrid, that’s started to always look like a challenge, something to shatter as soon as it throws itself up. 

“Well?”  Ingrid follows when Smitelout leads the way to the first of three doors and opens a well-oiled latch to let them inside. 

Her room has a bigger bed than Ingrid is used to, thanks to that Jorgenson title, most likely, and a few shelves along one of the walls.  Her clothes are folded neatly and there are a few tokens stacked among them.  A child-sized hammer and a small rack of second place Thawfest medals catch Ingrid’s attention and she walks over to the shelves, jingling the medals and picking up the hammer. 

“Sorry, it’s a mess,” Smitelout huffs, shutting the door behind them and sitting down on the foot of the bed.  She looks awkward.  She _is_ awkward. 

Ingrid can’t decide if she wants to let her stew in it or not and the thumps the tiny hammer against the bookshelf a couple of times before setting it down.  Awkward Smitelout in a sweater with a rumpled blanket on the foot of her bed is cute.  Ingrid wonders what would happen if she just laid down for a nap.  Would Smitelout join her?  Would she let that happen? 

She feels like she could trust Smitelout to answer something she can’t answer herself and she’s not sure what to do with the weight of that kind of trust taking up so much of her mind. 

“Oh no, you left a single sock on the floor,” she points at the one perceptible bit of mess in the corner and Smitelout stands up, tossing it into a basket by the door.  “I was kidding.  This is cleaner than my room has ever been.” 

“I don’t doubt it, given how your weapons look.” 

“Did I wake you up or something?”  Ingrid picks up one of the Thawfest medals and squints at the year inscription at the top.  They were sixteen or so, it was a close one.  It feels like gloating to hold it now and she hasn’t decided if that’s what she’s doing yet so she sets it back down. 

“What?  No.”  Smitelout sits back down, crossing her knees and staring at Ingrid with a weird, fidgety expression. 

“You’re just being weird.” 

“I wasn’t expecting you.” 

“So you don’t like me surprising you—”

“I got you something!”  She halfway shouts before clearing her throat and shrugging one painfully awkward shoulder.  Yes, it’s better to let her be awkward.  That’s a better use of Ingrid’s time. 

And it’s cute. 

Cute is a word she never expected to associate so strongly with Smitelout but right now she’s clearly being _cute_.  From her red ears and the soft hair hanging around them free of her braid to her oversized shirt and thor-damned woolen socks, she looks adorable.  Adorable and pissed off, which is better than either individually, apparently. 

Ingrid wonders if she’s ticklish.  That would piss her off more, for sure.  And probably make her redder and warmer and more likely to fall back into that rumpled blanket. 

“Like a present?”  Ingrid sits down on the edge of Smitelout’s bed next to her, their knees bumping against each other and Smitelout refuses to move like she’s been posed a challenge. 

Ingrid likes how she can somehow still be awkward even after the past couple of months.  It’s innocent in a way that seems real, there’s no pretense to it.  That strong forward-facing front is as much a part of her as the scowl that’s starting to look better and better the longer Ingrid stares at it.  Smitelout isn’t sugarcoating anything for Ingrid, if anything, she’s making herself bitter to avoid being vulnerable. 

Ingrid gets that.  It also makes her want to make Smitelout feel safe somehow.  Safe and comfortable, because she’s not doing a very good job hiding her sweet, what with the random presents and cozy socks and all. 

“If you want to call it that, whatever, it’s no big deal,” she leans forward and pulls a hatchet out from under the bed by its handle.  It’s not new but it’s in better shape than Ingrid’s old one and her metal fingers hover awkwardly above it for a second before she pulls her hand back, remembering what she doesn’t want to. 

Red glowing metal, pain on pain, the pained look on Spitleaf’s face when Ingrid insisted on doing it herself.  She was off center the first time.  It took two tries. 

“It’s a hatchet.” 

“It’s my old one, I figured you could use it until I get a new one done for you.” 

“What happened to my old one?”  Ingrid bites the inside of her cheek, wishing she hadn’t sat down or that Smitelout didn’t look so hopeful.  Expectant even, blue eyes soft under the hard glare of her eyebrow.  It feels like a trap. 

Everything does these days, it’s just up to her to set them rather than fall into them. 

“I couldn’t fix it.”  Smitelout looks away, shrugging one shoulder. 

“That’s not true.” 

“Yeah, it is, it wouldn’t re-quench right, it kept—”

“No, it’s not true, you wouldn’t just come out and admit it like that.”  Ingrid takes the hatchet with a quick grab, closing her metal fingers around it with her other hand.  It’s light for her and short, its handle painted with long faded black, but it’s newly oiled and sharpened.  “Why are you giving me this?” 

“Because,” Smitelout sets her jaw, looking at the wall above Ingrid’s head for a second before zeroing in on her face, “I guess—I mean, I think it’s kind of fucked for you to keep the other one around and not tell anyone about it.” 

Ingrid’s heart stutters and she drops Smitelout’s hatchet on the bed. 

“What the Hel are you talking about?” 

“I figured it out, alright?”  Smitelout sighs and there’s nothing smug about it.  She looks like the words are heavy but she’s still too proud to want to set them down.  “You used the other one to cauterize—”

“Like that’s any of your business.” 

“It is my business because I’m the one you want to fix it and I’m not going to fix it just for you to keep it around and feel sorry for yourself.  That’s fucked.”  She repeats, sitting up straighter like saying it again like it’ll get a different result the second time. 

Ingrid is jealous of and furious about that optimism and she clenches her fists in the furs on Smitelout’s bed. 

“How did you figure that out?” 

“Why else would you get anything that hot?”  Smitelout is smug about being right and also pained with it, the expression the steadiest thing about her as her shoulders waffle between leaning towards and away from Ingrid, like she can’t decide how much of this fight she wants to pick.  That’s new too, the answer has always been all of it.  “Look, I didn’t throw it away or anything, I get it if you want to keep it like, you know, because that’s pretty badass to do that to your own hand—”

“Stop.”  Ingrid blinks back a sudden, boiling hot tear, and Smitelout bites her lip and slowly lets it go, like her speech has been interrupted and she’s deciding whether she’s going to keep talking or not. 

She does. 

Of course. 

“If you want to keep it, I can get it stable, but it’s not going to be the same hatchet.” 

“You think I should get rid of it?”  Ingrid doesn’t know why she cares what Smitelout answers, but she does. 

“It’s not going to be the same axe.”  Smitelout shrugs, her face tinged with an almost appropriate level of grief.  She brings weapons back to life, she must get some of the pain when they die. 

“It’s not the same hand either.”  Ingrid’s right hand shakes as she holds it up, the metal fingers stock still on their strap. 

“One of them was easier to fix because it was made out of better stuff to begin with,” she reaches for Ingrid’s hand and Ingrid pulls it away, cradling it to her chest. 

“You had no right to guess any of that.”  Ingrid wants to stand up and storm off.  She does.  Really.  The same way she does when someone tells her that she just needs time or rest or to forgive herself. 

But this is harder because Smitelout isn’t feeding her any of those lies.  Smitelout is saying that she needs a hand and a hatchet. 

“Someone had to.” 

“No, no one had to.”  Ingrid hates how her voice sounds, how open ended and uncouth it is.  She’s not going to cry but it almost sounds like it.  “You could have just told me that the hatchet was bad, you didn’t have to get all personal—”

“I’m not the one who made it personal.”  Smitelout snaps, raising her voice for the first time in what feels like eons.  She yelled when Eret was being an idiot, Ingrid guesses, but that was to make everyone else slow down, it wasn’t directed at Ingrid, not really.  “And I think you keep getting pissed at the wrong person, I’m just trying to help you—”

“I didn’t ask for your help!”

“You don’t have to!”  Her tone is pleading and her voice is harsh, an unrelenting, ragged scrape against that new soft spot for her.  “I wouldn’t help you if I didn’t want to.  If I didn’t think you deserved it—”

“I should have it figured out by now.”  Ingrid leans forward, head in her hands, metal fingers cold against her forehead. 

She thought she did, for a while.  She had a distraction at least, somewhere to put all of these feelings of never being enough ever again.  She’d shunt them to the side and think about Smitelout because that was easy and fun and rewarding.  Because it made her feel like she could be something besides a pet project to someone again. 

But Smitelout has been working on her too, apparently.  In a different, better way that she can’t find fault in, and that’s worse. 

She doesn’t like being figured out.  She doesn’t like that Smitelout could, it makes her feel transparent and that wasn’t part of this.  She wants to leave, but she’s going to let Smitelout say her piece first, because it’ll close this door.  She needs the pity to give up on the excited warmth that was so real just a couple of minutes ago.  She’s done leaving things half open and hoping for the best. 

Gods, Smitelout was right about the fucking hatchet.  She’s such a brat. 

“Hey, Ingrid,” Smitelout’s voice is rough and slow like she’s not used to sounding nice and she’s not particularly good at it either.  If she didn’t feel so awful, Ingrid would laugh.  “I—I really do think it’s kind of badass, ok?  Like…you did what you had to do and dealing with that has to suck ass and—Gods, I’m fucking this up but—”

“Spit it out,” Ingrid glares at her hand.  She waits to hear how sorry Smitelout is for her. 

“The second time was after you brought me your hatchet, which—that’s part of it, obviously.  And the third time, Spitleaf was at that bonfire with the Larson prick and then you got pissed about me trying to touch you and then when I brought that up, the fourth time happened and I don’t have the first one figured out yet, but I think it was because you wanted to piss me off.”  Smitelout exhales like she’s been holding her breath far too long and her eyes are so wide and pained that Ingrid’s grief shirinks slightly, approaching it’s holding level as this veers off from what Ingrid has been so conditioned to expect.  “Which…it didn’t, because—well it did, because—I like you too much to stay mad at you and that pisses me off more than anything you do.” 

“What’s your point here?”  Ingrid sniffs, blinking against a stalled bleariness in her eyes.  What is she counting? 

“I know you just chose me because I already liked you and that made it…safe, or something, because I wasn’t going to say no, but like, that’s fine.”  Smitelout shrugs and she looks so thoroughly hopeful and miserable, plucking at the edge of her woolen sock with anxious fingers.  “If it makes you feel better—”

The numbers click and Ingrid cocks her head, wiping the corner of her eye with the pad of her thumb. 

“You counted?” 

“What?”  Smitelout thinks for a second before scoffing and shaking her head, arms held out in front of her, “no, that’s—I don’t count shit—”

“You counted,” Ingrid can’t even laugh at that.  It’s as stupid as every decision she’s made lately, but something about scooting closer to Smitelout feels positive.  Like it’s building on something or towards something that might actually be decent. 

“For like…scientific reasons, Ingrid, how else was I supposed to explain to you that I figured out you’re jumping me to cope with—”

“Don’t say it,” Ingrid reaches up to cup Smitelout’s chin, brushing her thumb across the contrasting feel of soft skin on strong jaw. 

“Don’t say what?”  She rolls her eyes, sarcastic, and Ingrid’s heart throbs in her chest.  Smitelout is going along with it, the bold-faced existence of the truth wrapped casually in a lie and settled comfortably away from them. 

“It’s not because I knew you liked me,” Ingrid leans in further, slower than she has, tasting the moment before. 

Maybe Smitelout didn’t read her mind.  Maybe she got inside of it somehow and took in her surroundings.  Maybe she’s always been there. 

“I don’t mind,” Smitelout shrugs, face glowing bright red and warm under Ingrid’s hand as she cups her cheek.  She shudders, biting her lip with straight, slightly oversized front teeth.  Those are cute too. 

“I didn’t ask if you minded,” Ingrid kisses her, the hand not on her face on her waist to pull her closer, “I said it’s not because I knew you liked me.  Keep up.”  She doesn’t give her a chance to respond, pushing her shoulder back towards the bed and laying down beside her.  Half on top of her honestly, and that’s better.  It is cozy, warm and comforting in a way that makes her want to slow down. 

Smitelout’s hand lands on her lower back and Ingrid doesn’t bat it away, letting the soft touch tickle up and down her spine as Smitelout kisses back.  That’s still soft and lacking confidence but it’s earnest too and Ingrid breathes deep through her nose, trying to relax into it.  It’s not something she needs to control.  It’s something she could hand over like a hatchet and Smitelout won’t throw it back in her face. 

It takes Smitelout a long, slow moment to slip her tongue carefully into Ingrid’s mouth and when she does, she gasps, hand sliding between Ingrid’s shoulder blades as her other lands against her waist, tracing down to rest on her hip.  It still shocks Ingrid to feel Smitelout move so carefully and slowly, but not in a bad way.  In a way it feels like the minutes before a spar when she’s circling her opponent and sizing them up and Ingrid feels formidable.  Smitelout groans when Ingrid spreads her knees on either side of one of Smitelout’s thighs and her fingertips dig into Ingrid’s lower back. 

She arches unthinking into the touch and suddenly, this is all taking way too Odin-damned long. 

“It’s not because I knew you liked me,” Ingrid pulls away from the kiss to drag her lips along Smitelout’s neck, nosing her braid to the side to lick the fast fluttering shadow of her pulse.  This is better on a bed.  She’s going to have to push her into beds more often and give the walls a well deserved break.  “And yes, that first time was half because I wanted to piss you off but also because,” Ingrid pauses, sliding her hand to Smitelout’s hip and squeezing.  Smitelout gasps.  “Because of _that_.  You’re so reactive.  You’re the only person who puts any weight into me saying anything anymore.” 

It’s honest enough to be awkward so Ingrid bites the tender skin exposed by the neckline of Smitelout’s oversized shirt, sucking until the other girl shudders, hands flailing across Ingrid’s back. 

Smitelout wraps her heel around the back of Ingrid’s thigh and that’s nice too.  Warm and close and Ingrid almost wants to pull the blanket over them and push them further into their own little world. 

“It didn’t piss me off all that much,” Smitelout gasps, burying her face into Ingrid’s shoulder and kissing her through her shirt.  That’s warm and fluttery and not at all demanding and Ingrid finds herself squeezing Smitelout’s thigh between hers just to feel the solidity of it.  A wool sock brushes against Ingrid’s bare calf and she sighs, pulling Smitelout’s mouth briefly back to hers. 

“You keep fixing everything,” Ingrid mumbles as she grips the thigh hooked around hers, sliding up to find the waistband of Smitelout’s underwear and tracing back and forth.  She bucks into that, her leg jostling between Ingrid’s and that’s the warmest thing yet.  Not anything real or even worth thinking about, but enough to raise Ingrid’s blood pressure.  She kisses Smitelout’s jaw, “my axe, my hand.  Hel,” she leans up enough to grab Smitelout’s hand and slide it down to her ass. 

That felt good yesterday in a comfortable way, but when Smitelout groans, squeezing firmly and digging her heel further into Ingrid’s thigh, the warmth of it throbs in Ingrid’s chest. 

“You told me that you liked me after it happened,” she lets it become an event, a turning point, a blip on the path that led her to here and now and this comfortable heat.  Smitelout squeezes again and Ingrid’s hips rock carefully forward against Smitelout’s thigh.  That’s warmer.  Her breath catches when she tries to keep talking and she slides her first finger through the leg-hole of Smitelout’s underwear and finds her sensitive bud, tweaking it a little less than gently.  “But you’re the only one who still talks to me the same as you used to.” 

She pinches again and Smitelout lets out a muffled, frustrated stutter that’s half swear and half growl.  Her other hand lands on Ingrid’s ass and when she pulls down it’s an invitation to grind forward, not an order.  Ingrid does, biting her lip against a gasp she doesn’t know what to do with, rubbing in a tight circle and watching Smitelout’s closed eyes flutter. 

“Someone needs to,” Smitelout leans up on one elbow, her other hand leaving Ingrid’s ass tangling in her hair to pull her down into a deep, earnest kiss and Ingrid’s hips rock forward on their own, pressing into her wrist and sparking that warmth in her stomach again.  Smitelout stiffens and whimpers into her mouth, hand on the back of her head falling slack. 

“That was quick,” Ingrid lays her head back down and kisses along the side of her neck, feeling gentle and sleepy like this really hasn’t.  It’s still the relief that it was, maybe even more, and Ingrid feels her weight shifting further onto Smitelout as her muscles go slack.  She mouths at the corner of her jaw, stroking her waist and Smitelout groans a distinctly exasperated groan. 

00000

Ingrid isn’t as light as she looks.  Not that she looks light or anything, but she feels like a brick wall of sinew and warmth when she relaxes over Smitelout’s side, bony chin digging into her shoulder.  It could be that Smitelout can’t fucking breathe after feeling Ingrid grind down against her thigh and hearing her little moan deep in her throat when Smitelout squeezed her ass. 

Maybe she can’t fucking breathe because Ingrid reached down and put her hand on her ass in the first place. 

Ingrid yawns, hand slowing against Smitelout’s waist as her forehead thunks down on her collarbone and Smitelout shoves weakly at her shoulder, only now remembering that she still seems to have fingers. 

“You’re so heavy,” she tries to sound gruff but it comes out whiny, again, like Ingrid loves embarrassing her with. 

“So sweet,” Ingrid pinches her side with lazy fingers that tangle in the soft wool of her shirt.  It was comfortable clothes time.  Ingrid wasn’t supposed to show up, Smitelout only had half of her speech about the hatchet figured out and it didn’t come out well.  Obviously, it still came out pretty great, because look at where it got them, but it wasn’t as good as it could have been. 

But that’s not her fault, Ingrid did that by dropping by unannounced during comfortable clothes time and asking to see her room and…and…

Ingrid might actually like her.  That’s what’s hitting now as that post climactic haze starts to fade from her limbs and leave them slack.  She had reasons.  She likes how Smitelout fixes things.  It makes yesterday resonate deeper in her mind, because she hadn’t let the full possibility sink in, but if Ingrid likes her, Ingrid meant some of what she said.  All of that, probably, knowing Ingrid. 

“Here,” Smitelout pushes gently at her shoulder and Ingrid fights it for a rigid second before rolling over.  Their feet are on Smitelout’s pillow and she’s going to have to fix that later because that’s disgusting, but she can’t think about that right now, because Ingrid just loosely accepts her when she rests her head on her shoulder.  She grabs Ingrid’s hand and purposefully twines their fingers together and Ingrid laughs into her hair.  “What?” 

“What are you doing?” 

“You said if we didn’t fight, we’d have to hold hands and cuddle,” Smitelout sighs, wrapping her leg cautiously around one of Ingrid’s.  She doesn’t flinch and it feels like progress.  And it’s warm.  And Ingrid sets the hand Smitelout isn’t holding on her knee, metal fingers cold as her thumb strokes slowly.  Smitelout isn’t sure she’s ever been this close to another human being

Of course, logistically, Ingrid was closer a few minutes ago, but there’s something oddly intimate about breathing in tandem, her heartbeat thrumming under Smitelout’s ear. 

“Your suggestion.” 

“You took it.” 

“Fine,” Ingrid kisses her head again, pinching her knee at the same time in a classic honey and the hatchet diversion tactic.  “But you’re the one with the blanket all wrinkled up on your bed so you asked for it.” 

“That doesn’t make sense.” 

“It looked comfortable.”  Ingrid strokes the inside of her thigh, fingers moving slowly over the skin.  It’s not enough to get Smitelout going again and it quickly starts putting her to sleep, her eyelids drooping as soon as Ingrid stops. 

“It was until you interrupted me.”  Smitelout huffs, pressing her face into Ingrid’s shirt.  Wait no, that’s her jacket.  “Are your shoes on my pillow?  Thor’s beard, Ingrid, were you raised in a barn?”  She struggles against leaden muscles to sit up halfway and see Ingrid’s boots on her pillow. 

“No, the Hofferson house, actually.  About a leap down the social ladder from the Jorgenson barn, thanks for asking,” Ingrid smirks as she says it, sitting up and toeing her shoes off.  “Anything else unacceptable?”  She gestures down at herself and Smitelout swallows. 

“Are you actually asking that or—”

Ingrid smacks her in the calf.  It stings. 

“Within reason.” 

“The outer furs for the same reason as the shoes,” Smitelout shrugs, trying and failing not to search for a reaction, “and the spiked skirt isn’t great for my sheets.” 

“Fine,” Ingrid stands up, dropping her furs in a damp pile on the floor and unclasping her skirt to join the pile.  She picks up the blanket before laying back down and spreads it over both of them.  Her leg lands over Smitelout’s hip and she presses her forehead to her shoulder, breathing deeply.  “Were you actually asleep before I got here?” 

“No,” Smitelout doesn’t understand why Ingrid cares, because the answer isn’t something she really wants to say.  She was planning her hatchet speech, what of it?  Who said that was any of Ingrid’s business? 

“Then why so cranky?”  Ingrid kisses her neck, right on the hickey she made earlier, and it’s like she doesn’t understand that other people have to go face to public and figure out how to hide those. 

Even though it’s also kind of hot.  It’s like Ingrid wants to leave her with a souvenir and Smitelout isn’t complaining about that. 

Maybe just below the neckline.  That’s a compromise.

“I don’t know, maybe I’m cranky because some _person_ is showing up to my house—”

Ingrid kisses her, lazy and soft and absolutely encompassing and Smitelout melts into it, tugging the blanket further up to around their shoulders.  Ingrid hums, pulling Smitelout closer by her hip and rubbing her lower back.  Ingrid is firm and direct, every limb of hers a hard line leading somewhere Smitelout doesn’t have energy to think about right now.  It feels like there will be a later and that’s too much to think through too.   

This is real.  For some reason.  A hand and a hatchet and an instinct that Ingrid might need something made it real and she doesn’t think she could repeat it. 

“You look like you were taking a nap,” Ingrid runs her toes along Smitelout’s shin before yawning herself. 

Smitelout’s parents might come home.  She can’t bring herself to care and she blinks slowly, pulling Ingrid closer.  Ingrid hums, again, her hips pressing closer to Smitelout’s as she exhales a tired, shaky breath. 

“I was just reading,” Smitelout insists. 

Ingrid’s warm hand slides up under Smitelout’s shirt and casually grabs her breast, like that’s just a thing she does now, and Smitelout jumps. 

“What?”  Ingrid nuzzles into her neck, breath gentle and warm across Smitelout’s skin and this shouldn’t be something that can make her tired.  She doesn’t understand how she’s exhausted and keyed up with it all at once, but her eyes struggle to stay open even as Ingrid squeezes slightly, humming into Smitelout’s shoulder.  “Do you not want—”

“No, I want,” she nods, cheeks hot at Ingrid’s pleased expression.  “Since you obviously can’t keep your hands off of me, it’s just easier.”

“Right.” Ingrid rubs Smitelout’s side “the suffering you’re going though for me.” 

“I didn’t say that, I just said that you’re handsy, which—”

“I’ll take handsy.”  Ingrid closes her eyes and squeezes Smitelout’s breast again, tickling just underneath it with soft fingertips.  “It’s a pretty impressive descriptor for me if you think about it.” 

“What are your thoughts on cocky?” It’s flirting and Ingrid wrinkles her nose and yawns, shifting to get comfortable as her leg tightens around Smitelout’s. 

“Not a fan.”  She laughs, staring strangely at Smitelout for a quiet second before sighing and nodding to herself. 

“What’s up?” 

She looks up up at Smitelout through her eyelashes, biting her lower lip and slowly letting it go.  Another sigh.  Her heel drags up and down Smitelout’s calf like she’s trying to build herself up to something, which is so out of the ordinary it makes Smitelout nervous enough to wake her up. 

“I…next time, maybe try?”  Ingrid sounds shy and it sets all of Smitelout’s heckles on edge. 

“What do you mean?” 

Ingrid smacks her in the upper arm with the back of her hand and pulls her closer, breathing deeper. 

“Try, I mean—touch me.  I just—I like you, ok?”  Ingrid exhales a shuddering, heavy breath.  “I trust you.  I just…try?” 

Smitelout nods to herself more than anyone, rubbing Ingrid’s elbow or something equally uninteresting. 

“Sure.”  She shrugs, “I mean, if you insist—“

“I do.”  Ingrid narrows her eyes, “I’m trying to get over this here.” 

“I know that.”  Smitelout swallows. “And if you think it’ll help—”

“More than that,” Ingrid looks away, cheeks flushing, “I just want you to, ok?” 

“Yeah, that’s—I mean, yeah, no problem.”  Smitelout freezes for what’s probably too long but Ingrid grins and shakes her head, kissing under her jaw one more time with warm, fluttery lips.  She yawns.  Smitelout feels the gravity towards sleep tugging at her.  Hel, what’s her dad going to do?  It’s not like she’s going to get pregnant or anything. 


	6. First Again

“Hey!”  Smitelout jogs up to Ingrid by the docks, panting and stumbling on the gravel beach when she gets close.  Ingrid catches her arm and stands her back up straight before frowning at the smear of soot and sweat on her hand.  “Thor’s beard you walk fast, where’s the fire?” 

“Wherever you came from, apparently,” Ingrid laughs, messing with a loose strand of hair in front of Smitelout’s ear and showing ashy fingers.  “Did the forge blow up?” 

“Not literally,” Smitelout rolls her eyes, “it blew up with orders though, I haven’t seen the sun in a week and a half, I swear.  Tell the Twerp that maybe we don’t need a whole new armory all at the same time and if we do, maybe he could come help for a change.” 

“I would but I don’t see him either, he’s been out scouting.”  Ingrid looks restless as she says it and Smitelout slows down enough to look at her. 

Gods, it has been a while since she’s had an ounce of free time because it feels like she hasn’t seen Ingrid in eons.  Well, she’s seen her in a fly by sort of way and Ingrid borrowed her dragon a couple of times to take the smallest Haddock twerp on a couple of rides, but she hasn’t had any time to talk to her.  And again, she’s been super busy and they aren’t like, together, or anything because no one has said anything like that and Smitelout is absolutely still a free agent, not that it matters but—

“I’ve missed you,” Smitelout blurts.  Ingrid smiles and cocks her head. 

“That’s almost _nice_ , what did you do?” 

“Nothing,” she scoffs, “except, you know, finished your brand new hatchet while also building Chief Twerpling an entire new armory in less than a month.  So really, I did everything and I was just hoping you could come by the forge and pick it up.” 

“It’s done?”  Ingrid bounces slightly on the balls of her feet, “I figured you wouldn’t have time for a while.” 

“Well, I made time, but now it’s in my way.  Can you come pick it up now?”

“Right, a single hatchet is taking up so much room it’s single-handedly destroying productivity for you,” Ingrid grabs Smitelout’s hand and starts dragging her back towards the forge, blonde braid bouncing off of her shoulders.  It’s paler than it was this winter, like she’s been in the sun more, and Smitelout can’t help but notice the definition in her golden arms as she tugs a little harder, excited. 

It’s cute.  It’s already flattering that she’s so excited at the prospect of getting a new hatchet and Smitelout might have to get a good look at her weapons collection the next time she’s got some down time if this is the reaction that a surprise new weapon gets. 

“When you put it that way, I did better on it than I thought.”  Smitelout jogs ahead of Ingrid to pull the forge door open, holding back a spear that threatens to fall when the ancient hinges creak. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“It’s already acting like you,” she rifles through a crate of special orders on the top shelf for the wax paper wrapped hatchet.  It’s tied with a strip of seal skin she had leftover from making Ingrid’s hand and that feels as stupid as wrapping it now.  Ingrid won’t notice that.  She’s just going to tear the paper open anyway.  It’s not like Ingrid is her girlfriend or anything and she’s expecting wrapped presents.  “A one handed deadly weapon in the way of me getting anything done.  Ever.” 

Ingrid ratchets her middle finger up and waves it in Smitelout’s face, snatching the hatchet with her other hand. 

“You wrapped it?” She feels the shape of it through the paper, holding it up to her ear like it’ll rattle if she shakes it.

“It’s a hatchet, I already told you what it was.” 

“I don’t remember the last time I got a wrapped present,” Ingrid sets it down on the workbench and daintily unties the seal string, setting it aside and unfolding the paper almost daintily.  Her mouth flaps for a second when she sees the hatchet inside and she wordlessly looks up at Smitelout. 

“You hate it.”  Smitelout’s stomach drops and she reaches for the hatchet.  “What are you being nitpicky about?” 

“No,” Ingrid picks it up, hugging it to her chest like a child hugs a dragon toy, “it’s mine, no take backs.  I love it.” 

“You do?”  She clears her throat, swallowing that knot of unnecessary panic.  “I mean, of course you do, it’s some pretty good work—”

“It’s beautiful,” Ingrid holds it up to the light, running her fingertip over the Nightmare scale inlay around the grip.  “And these are so flat I don’t think it’ll be harder to clean.” 

“It’s not hard to clean if you just keep it oiled.”  Smitelout blushes as Ingrid drags the blade across her arm, shaving a narrow swatch. 

“Sharp as Hel too,” she grins, fitting it easily into the holster on her hip.  “Where’s the old one?” 

“Oh,” Smitelout turns away, pulling out her personal scrap drawer and producing what’s left of the blade and handle.  “I reused as much as I could of it, can I?”  She reaches for the new hatchet and turns it over, showing Ingrid the butt of the handle.  “It’s the same handle core, I used some bands here to put a new outer layer on it with harder wood and the scales.  And they should help keep it corrosion resistant.”  She hands it back to Ingrid and their fingers brush and Smitelout doesn’t know how that’s still exciting.  “Because I know you’re not actually ever going to oil it, no matter how many times I remind you.” 

Ingrid looks at the hatchet for another minute before almost reverently placing it back in her holster.  She crosses her arms and flushes slightly, leaning back against the workbench and crossing her ankles. 

“I thought you outdid yourself with the hand,” the corner of her mouth twitches and Smitelout looks over her shoulder at the closed forge window before taking a step closer. 

Ingrid likes her.  It’s the most obvious that it’s ever been, what with the way Ingrid flushes and waffles in her eye contact for a second before uncrossing her arms and planting her palms carefully on the edge of the workbench. 

“I need to make some upgrades on that anyway,” she uses it as an excuse to take Ingrid’s hand, ratcheting the fingers back and forth slightly and trailing one hand across the hard calluses of Ingrid’s palm to the soft skin of her wrist.  There’s a scrape on her forearm, like she’s been training, and she lets Smitelout grab her elbow and bend it to look at her palm.  “I don’t like how the leather is wearing here.”  She points at the strap across the base of Ingrid’s fingers.  “I didn’t use great leather though, because I didn’t know if you’d even like it or not—”

“Don’t replace my leather,” Ingrid’s smile is quieter than normal, introspective almost, and she takes her hand back, hovering for a second before resting it on Smitelout’s hip.  “I’m hand twins with Mr. Ack’s ass, remember?” 

“Even if that’s a thing for you, it’s not for me.”  Smitelout watches Ingrid’s eyes widen at that and takes another step closer.  Ingrid inhales sharply and Smitelout kisses her, leaning up onto her toes and tangling her hand in Ingrid’s hair.  She smells like forest, sap and breeze and fresh summer dirt and she groans low in her throat when Smitelout slips her tongue into her mouth, her other hand fisting in the fabric at Smitelout’s waist and pulling her closer. 

But largely, she lets Smitelout steer, holding on like she’s anticipating a steep turn on a half broken dragon but also relaxing into it.  Smitelout’s hand finds her ass again, like was ok last time, and Ingrid’s mouth stutters, her teeth grazing Smitelout’s lip almost sharply enough to hurt. 

And Smitelout can hear Ingrid’s almost cautious request playing over and over in her brain.  Ingrid wanted to be touched, she wanted Smitelout to try.  It’s not either of their faults that next time stretched out so far, but Ingrid also doesn’t stop her when she slides her hand under her skirt, molding it to her ass under over the much thinner fabric of her leggings. 

Ingrid clings to her shoulders, leaning a little too far into the kiss and jostling their teeth together. 

“Ok?”  Smitelout mumbles against her cheek, the hand not on her ass smoothing her shirt against her waist.  Ingrid nods and kisses her again, a series of near bruising pecks. 

“Yeah,” she leans a little harder on the workbench, spreading her feet enough for Smitelout to stand between them.  It makes them closer to the same height too and Smitelout leans into the new feeling of being surrounded by Ingrid.  She tugs at the fabric of Ingrid’s leggings and Ingrid’s knees quake as she nips Smitelout’s lower lip with more purpose.  “I trust you.” 

That’s a weight Smitelout hardly understands but she believes it, determined to live up to it as she buries her face in Ingrid’s neck and kisses aimlessly, easing her leggings down to her knees. 

“I don’t…” She starts, trailing off when Ingrid’s head lolls to the side, her pulse fluttering visibly under her skin.  Ingrid whimpers when she kisses there so she does it again, sucking on the skin like Ingrid so likes doing to her. 

“You don’t what?”  Ingrid’s heel curls around her calf and their hips bump together.  Smitelout isn’t entirely sure who made it happen but it feels good and she holds Ingrid’s hips closer to the workbench with her own.  Not so much pinning as stabilizing and Ingrid seems to appreciate it, tugging Smitelout’s braid free of its tie and running her fingers through it.  It smells like ash and feels gritty and greasy against the side of Smitelout’s neck but Ingrid doesn’t seem to mind, using it to pull Smitelout in close enough to kiss the skin under her ear. 

There’s a feeling that she’s biding her time, a kind of wary patience that makes Smitelout nervous and excited all at once, because like everything she says, it appears that Ingrid meant it.  Ingrid wants Smitelout to touch her.  She’s going to let it happen. 

“I’ve never done this,” Smitelout reaches underneath Ingrid’s skirt, trailing her fingertips up the smooth inner surface of her thighs.  The warm skin twitches at the contact and Ingrid closes her eyes, tugging Smitelout into another involved if less graceful kiss. 

“You’ll figure it out,” Ingrid sighs against Smitelout’s cheek, hands sliding down Smitelout’s shoulders to her arms and squeezing in a way that’s half reassurance and half bracing herself.  Smitelout brushes her fingers against the nest of curls between Ingrid’s legs and she shivers, the workbench creaking as her weight shifts against it.  “That’s a start.” 

“I know it’s a start,” Smitelout huffs, resting her forehead against Ingrid’s shoulder and closing her eyes to concentrate. 

“You can keep going,” Ingrid fidgets, pressing her hips forward against Smitelout’s hand.  Her finger glances across dampness and she inhales sharply, pulling back just enough to look down and see her hand disappearing under Ingrid’s skirt. 

That’s hot.  That’s really hot.  She brushes her thumb against the crux of Ingrid’s legs and she shudders.  Smitelout leans back in to kiss Ingrid’s neck, tracing the curve of her ass where it meets the back of her thigh.  That makes Ingrid whimper, a frustrate little sound that’s anything but tentative. 

Smitelout drags her first finger pointedly through the wetness and Ingrid sighs, moving her arms to rest on Smitelout’s shoulders, like she’s trying to stay out of the way.  Smitelout thinks of how Ingrid touches her and tries to replicate it, sliding slowly down through the damp curls until it’s all slick and smooth and Ingrid bites her lip, eyes squinted shut.

“There,” she nods, “do you feel that?  It’s—hnng.”  Her voice cuts off when Smitelout gives a tentative rub. 

“That’s it?”  Smitelout’s fingers slip over the little nub and Ingrid sighs, nodding at some sort of lazy diagonal.  Smitelout rubs harder and Ingrid nods a little more vigorously, hips bucking into the motion.  Smitelout’s hand slips off and Ingrid groans. 

“Come on, don’t stop.” 

“My hand slipped,” Smitelout groans, resting her forehead against the side of Ingrid’s neck and fumbling under her skirt. 

“Unslip it,” Ingrid’s voice drops closer to that husky tone and of course she sounds hot even when she’s the one waiting to be touched.  “Gods,” a harsh whisper slips out, “do you want me to help?” 

“I can figure it out,” Smitelout starts searching around again, sliding close enough to it that Ingrid gives a frustrated little groan, reaching down and grabbing Smitelout’s wrist to direct her.  “No, hey—”

“Yes,” Ingrid snaps, “I’m—”

“You can’t be patient while I figure this out?” 

“I’m _scared_ , ok?”  Her voice breaks and her eyes open, suddenly sharp and keen in a way Smitelout can’t look away from.  Not that she wants to, even though it seems polite. Decent even to give Ingrid a moment of privacy to be scared.  But Ingrid clearly wants to be heard. And seen.  And listened to.  “I’m scared that if this doesn’t work now, it won’t.  That I’ll just be stuck here, forever and—”

“You said I fix things, right?”  Smitelout kisses her, probably too hard, because their teeth clack together and Ingrid says something that gets muffled entirely.  “Give me a chance to fix this.” 

“It’s not a hatchet,” Ingrid looks scared and desperate and like she needs a kick in the ass to remember to keep fighting.  Because Ingrid doesn’t need someone to fight for her, she needs tools to fight with. 

It is a hatchet and Smitelout knows just the blade to arm her with. 

“No.  It’s not.”   Smitelout licks her lips, “it’s worse than that.  It’s just another thing that you don’t get to be better at than me.” 

“What are you talking about?”  Ingrid is startled out of looking scared at least, that’s a step in the right direction.  Confused is easier to deal with than scared. 

“You don’t get to be better at getting your girlfriend off than I am.”  Smitelout drops to her knees, pushing Ingrid’s skirt up around her waist and bracing her hands against her hips to hold her still.  “So if I could just fucking see—”

“What did you just call me?”  Ingrid yelps when Smitelout sees the bump clearly and presses the flat of her thumb to it, rubbing back and forth.  “Did you just call me your—ah—your girlfriend?” 

“Yes.”

00000

“You can’t just declare that,” Ingrid grips the workbench with white knuckles and trembling hands as Smitelout zeroes in with that stubborn determination that’s almost always been irritating until now.  It’s almost too much, not in a bad way, it’s just overwhelming and Ingrid’s knees shake.

“I just did,” Smitelout’s other hand leaves Ingrid’s hip and a tentative finger slips into her, gentle in contrast to the pressure outside.  Smitelout kisses her inner thigh before licking across the line of her hip, searching for sensitivity in a scattered, near frantic way. 

“That’s not—it doesn’t work like—Gods, slow down.”  Ingrid nearly chokes on her breath, sweat beading along the back of her neck as the rub turns into more of a grind, and she can barely keep her hips from bucking into it.  The finger inside of her moves slowly, carefully and the scattered pleasure in her chest starts to condense and build. 

“Like that?” 

Ingrid nods, looking down and swallowing hard at Smitelout’s focused expression.  She’s looking at Ingrid like she’s something that’s in need of calibration, biting her lip.  She glances up and makes eye contact, her thumb slowing down slightly and faltering.  That’s almost better though, the randomness of the pressure as Smitelout refocuses, peppering kisses across the top of Ingrid’s thighs. 

A second finger joins the first and it’s been too long and Ingrid feels old nerves crackle back to life like lightning is coursing through them.  It’s still almost too much, too direct, too intense, and her knees wobble as one of her hands finds the top of Smitelout’s head, her hair soft under the layer of gritty ash.  This all feels different enough to be entirely new, from the way her leather skirt is pinching around her waist to the cool wood of the workbench against her ass. 

Most importantly, Smitelout kneeling in front of her, almost selfishly chasing her pleasure like it’s something to be won.  Her two fingers start pumping with a more even rhythm and she glances up at Ingrid one more time before leaning forward and dragging her tongue across her next to her still rubbing thumb. 

“Shit,” Ingrid swears, squinting her eyes shut and seeing stars emerge at the edge of her vision. 

“Is that a good—”

“Don’t stop,” Ingrid presses Smitelout’s head to her, bucking into it when her tongue darts out again. 

“Gentle.”  Smitelout nags, her fingers pumping in and in and _in._

Ingrid couldn’t quite picture what this would actually be like.  She didn’t assume Smitelout would be slow or tactful, but she didn’t expect this either.  Especially Smitelout’s tongue, which is somehow so innocent when they kiss but now it’s moving against her downright nimbly.  And her thumb is still rubbing against the side of that most sensitive spot and Ingrid hears herself crying out before she realizes it’s happening.  

The stars scatter across her vision and she barely catches herself on the workbench as her knees to slack.  And this is different too, a faster, harder sensation, hitting like a hammer and echoing through her as Smitelout stands up and wraps her arms around Ingrid’s waist. 

“Ok,” Smitelout kisses the side of her neck, gentle again, almost shy and Ingrid pats her on the shoulder with a boneless hand.  “Feeling unstuck?” 

“Hmmph,” Ingrid leans on Smitelout, one hand lazily reaching to pull her leggings back up and tug her skirt down.  She yawns and when Smitelout looks smug about it, Ingrid can’t even be mad because that’s fair.  She has something to be smug about. 

It doesn’t feel like a bandage, it feels like a brick in the foundation of how she moves forward.  Just like the fingers and the axe and the hatchet.  Ingrid doesn’t know how to feel about owing someone so much but more than that, she doesn’t know why she’s not more upset about it. 

“Girlfriend, huh?”  She wipes the sweat off of her brow with the back of her hand and Smitelout blushes for the first time since she dropped to her knees and did _that_. 

“The price of free hatchets.”  Smitelout shrugs, stuffing her hands in her pockets like she’s not sure whether she should puff up or not.  The glare is cute.  Ingrid bends down and kisses the furrow between her eyebrows. 

“Seems reasonable.” 

“Really?”  Smitelout’s face goes slack for a second before she forces her jaw rigid again and this should feel like more of a decision than it does.  She probably already decided the instant she chose to chase Smitelout’s blush instead of her anger. 

“You want me to take a while to think about it?” 

“What?  No.”  She shakes her head, adorably smug, again ,”plus, I already declared it and no take backs—”

“Oh my gods,” Ingrid claps her hands to either side of Smitelout’s face, “quit while you’re ahead, for once.” 

“Kind of permanently ahead now,” she shrugs, “if you’re my girlfriend.” 

“Ok, don’t get mushy on me now,” Ingrid squeezes her hand.  “Don’t you have work to complain about or something?”  She uses still limp arms to haul herself up to sit on the edge of the workbench.  “I’ll hang out.” 

“Fine,” Smitelout looks at her a second too long before shuffling around and throwing a few logs onto the forge, “until you get in my way—”

“Right, I never let you get anything done, I get it.”  Ingrid smiles as she says it, resting her chin on her hand.  It’s not transformational as much as it’s foundational and maybe starting over doesn’t have to be so bad. 

 


End file.
